Saturday 26 October 2013

Muchalls Castle

A bleak windswept track, a few miles inland from Stonehaven winds across open arable fields, on the lower slopes of a hill that leads to a clump of trees on the top. The size of the potholes would deter a determined intruder. Those without a 4x4 would have to walk. Hidden by the trees on the top of the hill I reckon Muchall Castle would make the perfect hide away. A romantic house with a courtyard, and views out, through the trees to the sea. There is supposed to be a tunnel that leads to a cave, Gin Shore, that was used for smuggling, who knows?


This place has been held by people called Fraser, they sold it to the Hays in 1415, and then it passed to the Burnett's, who built the castle c1619. James VIII, the Old Pretender stayed here during the course of the disastrous Jacobite Rising in 1716.



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