Drumlanrig Castle

Drumlanrig Castle stands above the valley of the Nith, raised on the site of an older Douglas stronghold. The present building was commissioned by William Douglas, 1st Duke of Queensberry, and constructed between 1679 and 1689 in the Renaissance manner of the late seventeenth century. Its walls are cut from a local sandstone whose warm rose tint long ago earned it the nickname the ‘Pink Palace’. The scale is considerable — some 120 rooms, four flanking towers and seventeen turrets — while formal gardens were laid out between 1675 and 1697 along principles associated with the architect Sir William Bruce, later gaining water cascades added by Sir John Clerk of Penicuik between 1728 and 1732. Today the castle belongs to the Dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry, and it holds part of the family’s celebrated art collection, including Rembrandt’s An Old Woman Reading and Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna of the Yarnwinder — the latter stolen in 2003, recovered in 2007, and since lent to the Scottish National Gallery. A Roman fort, uncovered close by in 1984, hints at far older occupation of the ground. The interior opens to visitors only at limited times of year, though the surrounding grounds stay accessible for much longer.