Opening times: 1 April to 30 September 9.00 am – 6.00 pm; 1 October to 26 October 10.00 am – 5.00 pm; 27 October to 31 January 10.00 am – 3.00 pm; 1 February to 28 February 10.00 am – 4.00 pm; 1 March to 31 March 10.00 am – 5.00 pm. CLOSED 25, 26 December; 1, 2 January.
Perched on a rocky promontory jutting out into the North Sea, Dunnottar Castle surely ranks as one of Scotland’s most dramatic ruins. I suspect if you commissioned fantasy landscape artist Roger Dean – he of all those 1970s Yes album covers – to paint a ruined castle he would probably come up with something close to Dunnottar. He would perhaps have that promontory floating in the air, but with its sheer sides the real thing looks like it is only just tethered to the land. As the tagline on the castle’s website has it, “Once seen, never forgotten…”
The same view, taken on a previous visit in September 2022.
The surviving castle hails largely from the 15th – 17th centuries although it is unknown exactly when the area was first fortified. St. Ninian is believed to have founded a chapel here in the 4th century, but the earliest apparent record of a castle is found in the Annals of Ulster, which record sieges on ‘Dun Foither’ in 681 and 694. The Chronicles of the Kings of Alba has King Donald II of Scotland being killed during a Viking raid here, and Symeon of Durham recounts the English King Æthelstan raiding as far north as Dunnottar in 934, so this rocky outcrop had a broad and bloody history long before the foundations of the current castle were laid.
The section of the castle known as the Keep was the first stone castle on the site, built by Sir William Keith, Great Marischal of Scotland, in 1392. The title Great Marischal (later Earl Marischal) was formalised by Robert the Bruce circa 1324, and the occupier of this role was responsible for safeguarding the Honours of Scotland, i.e., the Scottish Crown Jewels.The Honours of Scotland were hidden at Dunnottar Castle in 1651 and 1653 during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639 – 1653), the three kingdoms being Scotland, England, and Ireland. Above, from left to right, are the smithy, the storehouse, and the Keep.The ceiling of the drawing room was restored in the 1920s. The writing above the fireplace commemorates Governor of Dunnottar George Ogilvy, his wife Elizabeth Douglas, and her kinswoman Anne Lindsay, who defended the Crown Jewels when the castle was besieged by Cromwell’s troops in 1651–2. Severe damage caused during the siege ended Dunnottar’s time as a noble palace and it was reduced to serving as an army barracks. The following century the Earl Marischal title was forfeited after the 10th Earl George Keith took part in the 1715 Jacobite Rising.The chapel was consecrated in 1276 by William Wishart, Bishop of St. Andrews. William Wallace allegedly had it burned down 21 years later, with the English garrison still inside it. When William Keith constructed the Keep in 1392 he was threatened with excommunication for building on hallowed ground, so by way of appeasement he built a chapel in nearby Stonehaven. The chapel exterior. The Whigs’ Vault. 167 Covenanters (122 men and 45 women) were imprisoned in this room for six weeks, their ‘crime’ being their refusal to accept Charles II’s insistence that he be acknowledged Head of the Church. We have previously met the Covenanters here and here. There was no sanitation and the prisoners were kept ‘ankle deep in mire’, with the only available food and water being what little they could afford to buy from the guards. 25 men escaped, but two fell to their deaths and fifteen were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault and 37 were released after pledging allegiance to the king. The remaining prisoners were transported to New Jersey as part of a colonisation scheme.
Left: Lion’s head decoration on well. George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal, had a pet lion, which he brought to the castle in 1593. Right: Sundial in the Marischal Suite. It was moved here from the castle entrance during restorations in the 1920s.
The cistern in the foreground with the drawing room (the roofed building) behind. To its left is the north range, where important employees were housed. They each had their own quarters and a degree of privacy that would have been unusual at the time.
Dunnottar Castle was bought in 1919 by Lord and Lady Cowdray who undertook an extensive programme of conservation and restoration, and opened the castle to the public. It remains in family ownership and now attracts over 100,000 visitors a year.
Destination or Diversion?
It might just take an hour or so to wander around the castle grounds but to see it at its most spectacular time should should be spent viewing it from the surrounding beach and clifftops. That being the case, it’s a destination.
As this stairways indicates, Dunnottar Castle is not suitable for those with mobility issues. I stopped halfway up to take this picture but I was happy for the breather. A misty morning in September 2022.
