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Craigievar Castle

Craigievar Castle

John Smith

Photo: Colin Smith · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Alford, United Kingdom
Client / Owner
William Forbes
Year
Completed 1626
Access
Tickets required
Style
—

Craigievar is a harled, seven-story tower house on an L-plan. William Forbes, an Aberdeen merchant, bought the partly built structure from the impoverished Mortimer family in 1610. The article gives its completion as 1625 or 1626. It is built in the Scottish Baronial style, with granite mouldings. Its plasterwork ceilings are called among Scotland's finest, and a large iron yett covers the entrance.

By the early 1800s the tower had decayed. Aberdeen city architect John Smith advised against demolition and restored it around 1826. A restoration from 2007 to 2009 re-harled the walls in lime.

The Forbes family lived there for about 350 years until 1963, when the estate went to the National Trust for Scotland. The article calls it the reputed inspiration for Disney's castle motif.

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