Huntly Castle

Huntly Castle stands north of the town of Huntly in Aberdeenshire, where the River Bogie meets the Deveron. Originally known as Strathbogie, the site passed to the Gordon family in the early fourteenth century, when Robert the Bruce granted it to Sir Adam Gordon after the Strathbogie lords had sided with England. The Gordons, later Earls and Marquesses of Huntly, held the estate for some six centuries, and the castle took its present name in 1506. What survives today is chiefly the work of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: a substantial ruined palace block adjoining a five-storey tower, richly detailed despite its decay. Its most celebrated feature is the carved frontispiece above the main doorway, bearing the names and titles of George Gordon, first Marquess of Huntly, and his wife Henrietta Stewart. The castle’s fortunes rose and fell with the Gordons’ Catholic loyalties; James VI brought workmen to slight the stronghold in 1594, following the Battle of Glenlivet, though it was afterwards rebuilt. During the civil wars of the seventeenth century it changed hands repeatedly, and was taken by the Marquess of Montrose in 1644. It is now cared for by Historic Environment Scotland and open to visitors.