Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 563290
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/563290
Westhall, 16th century with 17th- and 19th-century additions. Estate the property of Bishops of Aberdeen; at Reformation to branch of the Gordons, then purchased by Revd James Horne, vicar of Elgin in 1681. Complex house, Z-plan with 17th-century round tower with conical roof at south-east angle. Tall crenellated parapet to the original, strong, south-west tower, is carried on chunky corbels. Squinch arch in re-entrant for stair-tower. A large, sprawling three-bay house was added at the east and rear in the 19th century.
Westhall has a small place in railway history, being the point where work began on the Great North of Scotland Railway in 1852. The estate owner, Sir James Elphinstone, had formerly been active in the Aberdeen Canal Company.
Taken from "Aberdeenshire: Donside and Strathbogie - An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Ian Shepherd, 2006. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
