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Craigevar
Craigievar Castle in Deeside is one of Scotland's best-preserved tower houses.
It belongs to the last generation of Scottish castles, built at a time when Scotland
was entering a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. The adult rule of
James VI in Scotland saw a marked reduction in feuding, and his accession
as James I of England led to improved relations between the two countries. The
design of Craigievar, with its obvious emphasis on luxury and display, and little
concern with the need for defence, is testimony to this golden age.
The castle was the work of William Forbes, who, as a younger son, had to make
his own way in the world. He acquired a fortune through trade, in particular the
lucrative market between Scotland and North Germany, which earned him the nickname
Danzig Willie. Between 1610 and 1626, Willie invested his hard-won wealth in building
Craigievar.
Increasing sophistication
The castle looks very different from the simple massive rectangular blocks of
earlier tower houses, such as Threave. In the intervening
centuries, the design of these buildings had evolved, largely as the result of
increasingly sophisticated domestic needs. Working from the bottom up, tower houses
in the 15th and 16th centuries had more elaborate ground-plans than those of earlier
times, often having one or more wings incorporated into their design, to produce
an L- or Z-shape. (Craigievar's ground-plan is an elaborated L-shape.)
Fanciful towers and turrets
Moving upwards, the castle displays more concern with luxury than with defensibility.
As well as an entrance at ground-floor level, large windows are everywhere in
evidence, while loops or ports for cannon are conspicuously lacking. The biggest
difference between early and late period tower houses, however, is found at the
top. Gone are the wall-walks, battlements and machicolations of the late Middle
Ages; in their place are fanciful towers and turrets. At Craigievar, all of these
towers are 'corbelled' (they protrude out from the walls), an effect which 16th
and 17th century architects and their patrons found particularly pleasing.
An architectural feat
Craigievar was inhabited right down to the end of the 20th century, and many
of its rooms have been much altered and modernised. Several of the most important
rooms on the first floor, however, retain many of the original internal features
from William Forbes's day.
Pride of place goes to the hall, with its original screens, passage and elaborately
carved wood panelling. The real selling point though is the ceiling, fashioned
from ornamental plaster, which depicts (among other things) the heads of Roman
emperors. The castle also has a long gallery on its top floor; to incorporate
such a room in such a tall and slender building was no mean feat on the part
of the architect.
The castle today
Willie's direct descendants continued to own and live in the castle until the
death of Sir William Forbes, Lord Sempill in 1965, when it was bought by the
National Trust for Scotland for £30,000. It remains in the hands of the NTS
today and is open to the public.
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