Our castle tour through the Royal Deeside area continued this week, and we visited Craigievar and Crathes on a beautifully sunny day. Craigievar is a gorgeous, seven storey tower castle, harled in pink to match the granite that was used throughout in the castle construction. As a result, it looks like something from a Disney princess tale. Construction on the castle was completed in 1626, and it was owned and occupied by the Forbes family continuously until 1963. They didn't do much at all to improve the place in all those years, meaning the original footprint is still intact, and there's no Victorian wing or addition as is the case with most of the other castles we have seen so far. Apparently, their notions of historic preservation were so great that they never even added electricity, and even in 1963 were living in the castle by candlelight. Inside, the castle features some beautiful plaster ceilings...in fact they were the exact same ceilings we had seen in a few other castles on the tour. Apparently, an Italian plaster craftsman made his way through this part of Scotland in 1624, offering lairds and landowners a kind of 2-fer-1 special on moulded ceilings featuring Italian kings and queens. More interestingly, the castle features some amazing woodwork, as William Forbes made his fortune importing pine into Scotland from the Baltic states. He had craftsmen add pine detailing to many of the rooms, and our tour guide explained that, in order to make the pine look richer and more expensive--more like mahogany--it was stained with fresh ox blood. She assured us that the oxblood has been varnished many times over the years, but it did still contribute to the dark color of the wood.
I found many of the wood details of the castle fascinating--upstairs in the servants quarters the rooms featured box beds built into the paneling in an ingenious way. The wood was quite dark in the lower floor rooms, as that was where the family received guests and dignitaries, and became lighter as one ascended the curved granite stairs. In the upper floors, there were several nursery rooms and drawing rooms meant for sewing or reading, so they were done in light woods and white walls, and box cushions made from clan tartan on the built-in seats in each of the castle turrets. The castle footprint was quite small--no open floor plan here-- so it was quite a climb from the bottom floors to the top. I certainly felt sorry for the maids who had to carry buckets of water from the well in the basement to the top floors for the family's baths. At the very top, there was a bit of roof access, so the owners could survey all of their land. There weren't formal gardens here, as the owners had taken advantage of the hilltop location of the castle and cleared the land to create sweeping vistas below. Despite that, the castle was simply gorgeous...probably one of the most beautiful I have seen here in Scotland.
We also visited Crathes Castle, which is about 30 minutes to the east of Craigievar. Crathes is another harled 16th century tower house, owned by the Burnett of Leys family from the time the land was given to them in 1323 by King Robert the Bruce. Unlike Craigiever, Crathes was improved through the centuries, so wings were added, expanded, and reconstructed after fires. A main feature of this castle are the many Scottish renaissance painted ceilings in the Jacobean rooms in the castle.
There was no formal tour of this castle, but NTS staff were on hand in many of the rooms to answer questions. In one bedroom, we encountered a young woman who was working for the National Trust with long dark hair and an American accent. She told us about the furniture in the room, and Emma asked some questions about the woodwork on the beds. We weren't going through this castle with Amy and Ted, since I had stupidly lost track of them at the entrance, but after we debriefed later, Ted said he had talked to her as well and learned she was actually Canadian. Emma added that having a conversation with her was like talking to a future version of herself!
Crathes is surrounded by formal gardens, and these were just stunning. A walled garden featured climbing roses trailed on ropes, and though they weren't in bloom, the structure they gave to the garden was lovely. The tulips were in bloom, as were the bleeding heart, and there was one perennial border set aside for plants with white blossoms, but featuring foliage of all textures and colors. Had I had time, I would have written down every single plant and tried to recreate the bed in its entirety somewhere in my garden in the U.S. Unfortunately, the gardens closed at five here as well, so a few photos will have to do!
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| The white blossom border |
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| Like my hat? |
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| Roses training on a rope |
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| Bleeding heart in bloom |
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| The garden as seen through the main gate |
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| Tulips in bloom |
Our castle tour through the Royal Deeside area continued this week, and we visited Craigievar and Crathes on a beautifully sunny day. Craigievar is a gorgeous, seven storey tower castle, harled in pink to match the granite that was used throughout in the castle construction. As a result, it looks like something from a Disney princess tale. Construction on the castle was completed in 1626, and it was owned and occupied by the Forbes family continuously until 1963. They didn't do much at all to improve the place in all those years, meaning the original footprint is still intact, and there's no Victorian wing or addition as is the case with most of the other castles we have seen so far. Apparently, their notions of historic preservation were so great that they never even added electricity, and even in 1963 were living in the castle by candlelight. Inside, the castle features some beautiful plaster ceilings...in fact they were the exact same ceilings we had seen in a few other castles on the tour. Apparently, an Italian plaster craftsman made his way through this part of Scotland in 1624, offering lairds and landowners a kind of 2-fer-1 special on moulded ceilings featuring Italian kings and queens. More interestingly, the castle features some amazing woodwork, as William Forbes made his fortune importing pine into Scotland from the Baltic states. He had craftsmen add pine detailing to many of the rooms, and our tour guide explained that, in order to make the pine look richer and more expensive--more like mahogany--it was stained with fresh ox blood. She assured us that the oxblood has been varnished many times over the years, but it did still contribute to the dark color of the wood.
We also visited Crathes Castle, which is about 30 minutes to the east of Craigievar. Crathes is another harled 16th century tower house, owned by the Burnett of Leys family from the time the land was given to them in 1323 by King Robert the Bruce. Unlike Craigiever, Crathes was improved through the centuries, so wings were added, expanded, and reconstructed after fires. A main feature of this castle are the many Scottish renaissance painted ceilings in the Jacobean rooms in the castle.
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