Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 563075
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/563075
Castle Fraser, from 15th century; c.1576, Thomas Leiper; 1614, James Leiper; 1617-18, I (John) Bell; 1795, (?)James Byers. The trio of Aberdeenshire finest master-masons has produced an almost perfect Z-plan massing of blocks and turrets combined with an inspired elaboration of upperworks; Fraser is near the peak of Renaissance Aberdeenshire, passing quickly from tower (the earliest work on the bottom of the main block) to palace - complete with U-plan courtyard and laich biggins - and furnished with a colossal asymmetrical bedroom stack of six storeys which yet contrives to balance the whole. As currently presented, far too much rubble is exposed to appreciate the full beauty of the dressed stone, particularly the immense heraldic frontispiece slung high and mighty on the original front and the 'Arma Christi', below and to the right. True, there were many 18th- and 19th-century depredations, including the loss of the ceilings, but the interior retains enough, particularly the high, airy hall (with laird's lug) to savour. Fine library by John Smith, 1820, from long gallery.
Taken from "Aberdeenshire: Donside and Strathbogie - An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Ian Shepherd, 2006. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
