Qualla: Aberdour Castle

Aberdour Castle: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit R. W. Billings, Public domain. Aberdour Castle has stones in it that are older than Scotland's documented memory of itself. The lower courses of the modest hall house, the cubical masonry, the splayed base of the walls - all point to construction around the year 1200, which makes Aberdour one of the two oldest datable standing castles in the country. Only Castle Sween in Argyll can match it. The Mortimer family built the first hall here. Then the Douglas Earls of Morton spent the next four hundred years adding wings, towers, painted ceilings, and one of the oldest surviving gardens in Scotland - terraces cut into the south slope in the mid-1500s that still look out across the Firth of Forth to Edinburgh.

Read more: Aberdour Castle on Qualla

Image: R. W. Billings | Public domain

Aberdour Castle: Eight Centuries of Adding On

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Otter, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sir Alan de Mortimer acquired the barony of Aberdour in 1126 by marrying Anicea, daughter of Sir John de Vipont. Around 1140 he built St Fillan's Church, which still stands next to the castle. His descendants probably put up the first hall house around 1200 - the rectangular two-...

Read more: Aberdour Castle on Qualla

Image: Otter | CC BY-SA 3.0

Aberdour Castle: The Regent and the Murder of Riccio

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Arnold Bronckorst, Public domain. The most notorious owner of Aberdour was James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, who held the castle from 1553. In 1566 Morton helped plan the rebellion against Mary, Queen of Scots, that ended in the murder of her Italian secretary David Riccio at Holyrood. The plot failed politicall...

Read more: Aberdour Castle on Qualla

Image: Arnold Bronckorst | Public domain

Aberdour Castle: The Gardens

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dimwits, CC BY-SA 2.0. The 4th Earl of Morton also created the four broad L-shaped terraces that step down the south slope of the castle. They are the oldest documented garden of their kind in Scotland, predating the Renaissance gardens of England by a generation. At the bottom an orchard was laid out ...

Read more: Aberdour Castle on Qualla

Image: dimwits | CC BY-SA 2.0

Aberdour Castle: Decline and Rescue

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Hawkins, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Douglas line ran into trouble. William Douglas, 7th Earl of Morton, was Treasurer of Scotland from 1630 to 1636 and a fierce supporter of Charles I during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He spent his fortune on the royal cause, and in 1642 was forced to sell Dalkeith to the E...

Read more: Aberdour Castle on Qualla

Image: Andy Hawkins | CC BY-SA 2.0