Fyvie Castle

Fyvie Castle

Five towers, five families

In the green farmland of Aberdeenshire stands one of the grandest and strangest castles in Scotland. Fyvie is enormous, with a long, sweeping front broken by great rounded towers. According to tradition, each of its five main towers was built by a different family that owned the castle over the centuries — the Prestons, Meldrums, Setons, Gordons and Leiths. Because of this, Fyvie grew slowly across hundreds of years, each owner adding their own piece.

The result is a castle that feels like several castles joined into one: a vast, romantic pile of turrets and chimneys that seems almost too big to be real.

From royal stronghold to noble showpiece

Fyvie's story begins in the Middle Ages, when it was a royal stronghold. Kings of Scots stayed here, and the great hero-king Robert the Bruce is said to have held court at Fyvie.

The castle's most splendid feature, the great south front with its soaring central gatehouse, was created around 1599 by Alexander Seton, a powerful nobleman and statesman. Inside, Fyvie holds one of the finest stone spiral staircases in Scotland, a magnificent wheel stair grand enough for a palace.

Curses, secret rooms and a weeping stone

Few castles have collected as many legends as Fyvie. The most famous is the tale of the curse of Fyvie, linked to the wandering prophet Thomas the Rhymer. The story tells that three special stones were taken from a nearby church when the castle was built. So long as the stones stay sealed within Fyvie's walls, the legend says, the families who live there will suffer ill luck and fail to pass the castle smoothly from father to son.

Fyvie is also said to have a secret room that must never be opened, and a stone that weeps water no matter the weather. And like many great Scottish castles, it has its ghosts, including a famous Green Lady said to drift through its corridors.

Fyvie today

For all its eerie tales, Fyvie is also a treasure house of beautiful things, with grand rooms, fine portraits and rich furnishings collected over its long life.

Today the castle belongs to the National Trust for Scotland, and visitors can climb the great wheel stair, explore the painted and panelled rooms, and listen to the stories of curses and ghosts that cling to its ancient stones. Fyvie reminds us that a castle is not only walls and towers — it is also the legends people tell about it, passed down for hundreds of years.