Aberdour Castle began as a hall house around 1200, and in the fifteenth century it was converted into a tower house and heightened. The tower house measures 52 by 36 feet (16 by 11 meters). The Douglas Earls of Morton built and expanded the castle and held Aberdour from the fourteenth century. Around 1500 the second earl added a stair tower and south block, and Earl William added the Renaissance east range around 1635, with a long gallery and a painted ceiling.
The terraced gardens date from the mid-sixteenth century, and the walled garden of about 1.2 acres from the 1630s. A beehive doocot, 30 feet tall, has about 600 nesting boxes.
Fires damaged the castle in 1688 and 1715, and in 1725 the Mortons bought Cuttlehill House. The castle came into state care in 1924.
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