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Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 563125
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/563125
Corgarff Castle, 1537; fire-damaged 1571, 1607, 1689 and 1746. Tall and gaunt on the brae above the (sacrilegious) new Cock Bridge, this began life as a plain three-storey, basement and attic hunting lodge of the Earl of Mar. Acquired by Forbes of Towie, it was burnt, along with 26 of the residents including Mistress Forbes and her children, in 1571, by Captain Ker, on behalf of Adam Gordon of Auchindoun (Moray, qv). This savage deed, but one episode in the abiding
enmity between Gordons and Forbeses, is commemorated in the ballad 'Edom o' Gordon'. Occupied by Montrose, 1645, converted to Hanoverian garrison, 1748, by adding single-storey 'pavilions' to east and west of the tower and enclosing all within an elongated eight-point curtain wall, in plan a star-shape, for musketry defence (cf Braemar). Garrisoned until 1831 in attempt to control whisky smuggling out of Moray. Within is an effective Historic Scotland evocation of
Hanoverian barrack-life.
Taken from "Aberdeenshire: Donside and Strathbogie - An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Ian Shepherd, 2006. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
