Abergeldie Castle

About

Abergeldie Castle is a four-floor tower house in Crathie and Braemar parish, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It stands at an altitude of 840 feet (260 m), on the south bank of the River Dee, five miles (8 km) west of Ballater, and about two miles (3 km) east of the royal residence of Balmoral Castle. Behind it rises Creag nam Ban, a rounded granite hill about 527 metres (1,729 ft) high, and across the river to its front is the cairn-crowned Geallaig Hill, rising to 743 metres (2,438 ft). It is protected as a category A listed building. The castle was the home of the Baron of Abergeldie. The name derives from the Pictish language, and means the "Confluence of Geldie," a reference to its location near the confluence of River Geldie and River Dee. A late Bronze Age standing stone, about 6.5 feet high, 2.5 feet wide, and 1.25 feet thick on the lawn of the castle is one indicator of the great antiquity of this site, and its long occupation by man. It also has one of the longest unbroken records of ownership, being in the hands of the Gordon family for 600 years. It was most likely built around 1550 by Sir Alexander Gordon of Midmar, son of the first Earl of Huntly, on grounds acquired by the Gordon family in 1482. The interior has been returned to its original state, restored by a descendant of the builder. During the course of the first Jacobite rising in 1689–90, the castle was besieged by Jacobite forces. However, following the defeat of General Buchan's Jacobite forces by Sir Thomas Livingstone at Cromdale on 1 May 1690, General Hugh Mackay of Scourie marched with some cavalry and 1,400 Williamite Dutch infantry (probably including his own former regiment) to lift the siege. It figured again in the 1715 Jacobite Rising, being garrisoned by government troops (having then only recently been renovated by Rachel Gordon, 10th Heiress, and her husband, Captain Charles Gordon, who had also built nearby Birkhall, later sold to the current royal family), and again in the short 1719 Rising, when it was briefly garrisoned by Spanish troops. In 1848, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's Consort, purchased the lease of the Abergeldie Estate for 40 years, as it was relatively close to the new royal residence of Balmoral. Birkhall, with an estate of 6,500 acres, was bought from the Gordons by Albert, the Prince Consort, about the same time (though there has long been a local rumour that the Laird lost Birkhall in a card game). After his marriage in 1863, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, whose family nickname was 'Bertie', stayed every year at Abergeldie, indulging his twin passions of shooting by day and card games by night. According to an entry in W. E. Gladstone's 1871 diary, Albert Edward one night asked Gladstone to drive over from Balmoral to dine. Gladstone was charmed by his manner, but not his gaming morals. The Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland mentions that the Duchess of Kent spent several autumns here between 1850 and 1861, and that the Empress Eugénie passed the October there following the loss of her son The Prince Imperial (1879), and that it was used as a summer residence and shooting box for the then Prince of Wales (who later became Edward VII). After the accession of King Edward VII in 1901, it was used by his son, the Prince of Wales (later King George V) in 1902. Other members of the royal family who stayed at Abergeldie included the daughters of Edward VII, Princesses Louise, Victoria and Maud of Wales. Birkhall remains in the royal family's possession; King Charles III spent time here when he was Duke of Rothesay, together with Queen Camilla. Abergeldie Castle was last occupied by the 21st Laird, John Seton Howard Gordon (1938–2020), who had lived there since 1972 (the lands having been previously on lease to the royal family's Balmora

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.