Fyvie Castle

Five families have played their part in the history of Fyvie Castle (15mi/24km to the east of Huntly) and the five towers bear their names. In the east is Preston Tower, in the west Meldrum Tower, in the center of the south front Seton Tower, in the north Gordon Tower and in the northwest the Leith Tower. However, the word "Fyvie" does not derive from the English word "five" but from the Gaelic word for "stag's hill". Scottish monarchs stayed here at the beginning of the 12th C when it was only a wooden fort, but it was reinforced in the 14th C by stone walls and corner towers.

At that time it belonged to Sir Henry Preston but it passed by marriage to the Meldrum family in the 15th C. In 1596 Alexander Seton bought the estate and set about converting it into the Scottish baronial style by adding tiny corner towers, oriel windows, conical roofs and stepped moldings. About 1683 Robert White from Edinburgh finished the ceilings with some marvelous plasterwork, but this has only survived in the Morning Room. By the middle of the 18th C the castle was in the hands of William Gordon who drained the marshy terrain outside the east wing and built an artificial lake in the parkland. Pompeo Batonis' impressive portrait study of the young laird posing romantically in front of the Coliseum in Rome was painted during Gordon's journey to Italy in 1766. Financial distress forced the sale of Fyvie to Alexander Leith, an American steel magnate, who originated from near Fyvie. He assembled many expensive paintings - 13 works by Raeburn - Brussels tapestries and a collection of weapons. The superb gallery on the second floor of Leith Tower must, however, be the castle's showpiece.