Braemar Castle
Braemar Castle is a striking tower house castle nestled in the heart of Royal Deeside, in the Cairngorms National Park of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It sits on a low rise above the River Dee, commanding attention with its distinctive star-shaped curtain wall, turreted silhouette, and harled white walls. The castle is a cherished landmark in one of Scotland's most celebrated Highland landscapes and holds a special place in Scottish history, being intimately connected with Jacobite uprisings, clan rivalries, and later the romanticisation of the Highlands that followed royal patronage. It is now owned by the local community and managed as a visitor attraction, making it one of the relatively rare examples of a significant Scottish castle returned to the hands of the people who live in its shadow.
The origins of Braemar Castle date to 1628, when John Erskine, the 6th Earl of Mar, built it as a hunting lodge and stronghold in an area that was already prized Highland territory. The Earl of Mar family had long held power in the region, and the castle served as a base of operations in a landscape where feudal authority was frequently contested. It did not escape conflict: in 1689, the castle was burnt by John Farquharson of Inverey — the legendary "Black Colonel" — in a dramatic act of defiance against the government forces who had garrisoned it. This act left the structure a ruin for several decades. The castle's story took another major turn in 1715 when John Erskine, the 11th Earl of Mar, raised the Jacobite standard at Braemar, launching the first significant Jacobite uprising in support of James Francis Edward Stuart, the "Old Pretender." Though the rebellion ultimately failed, it cemented the castle's place in the turbulent political history of early eighteenth-century Scotland.
Following the failed Jacobite rebellions and the subsequent government effort to pacify the Highlands, Braemar Castle was leased to the Hanoverian government in 1748 and rebuilt as a garrison fort, intended to house troops tasked with suppressing any further Highland resistance. The star-shaped perimeter wall, with its pointed bastions designed to deflect cannon fire and allow defenders to cover all angles, dates largely from this military redevelopment. The castle was used as a barracks until around 1797, after which it passed into the hands of the Farquharson family of Invercauld, who leased it from the Invercauld Estate. They restored and furnished it as a family residence, and much of the interior that visitors see today reflects the domestic character accumulated over the centuries of their tenure, including period furniture, weapons, and clan memorabilia that give the rooms a lived-in, intimate quality rare among Scottish castle attractions.
In 2007, the Farquharson family put the castle up for lease and the community of Braemar rallied to take over its management through a community trust. This transition was a remarkable act of collective local investment, and the villagers have since worked hard to restore, maintain, and animate the castle with engaging guided tours and community events. The interior is arranged across multiple floors of the original tower, with narrow spiral stairs leading between rooms that feel genuinely ancient — low ceilings, thick stone walls, small windows that frame views of the surrounding hills, and fireplaces that once heated soldiers and clan chiefs alike. The bottle dungeon cut into the rock beneath the tower is a particularly arresting detail, a grim reminder of the castle's role as a place of power and punishment.
Standing at Braemar Castle, the surrounding landscape is immediately overwhelming in the best possible sense. The Cairngorms rise in every direction, their rounded, ancient summits often dusted with snow well into spring and sometimes through summer. The River Dee runs nearby, cold and clear from its source high on the Cairngorm plateau, and the surrounding hillsides are draped with birch woodland and heather moorland. The village of Braemar itself is only a short walk away — a small, well-kept Highland settlement famous for the Braemar Gathering, the Royal Highland Games held every September and attended traditionally by the British Royal Family, who stay at nearby Balmoral Castle. Balmoral, the royal residence associated with Queen Victoria's passionate adoption of the Highlands, lies only a few miles to the east along the A93, and the whole stretch of Deeside carries a sense of regal heritage and wild Highland grandeur in roughly equal measure.
Visiting Braemar Castle is a thoroughly rewarding experience at almost any time of year, though the castle is typically open to visitors from late spring through early autumn, with the exact season varying year to year under community management. It is always worth checking current opening hours with the castle directly before visiting, as community-run attractions can have more variable schedules than larger heritage sites. The castle is easily reached by driving along the A93 through Royal Deeside — one of Scotland's most scenic road routes — and there is parking nearby. Braemar village has a small but functional range of visitor facilities including accommodation, a café, and shops. For those arriving without a car, bus services connect Braemar to Ballater and onwards to Aberdeen, though services are infrequent. The autumn visit coinciding with the Braemar Gathering in early September draws large crowds and should be booked well in advance for accommodation, but it offers an incomparable combination of Highland tradition, royal spectacle, and castle atmosphere.
One of the more unusual facts about Braemar Castle is the presence of graffiti scratched into the plasterwork by Hanoverian soldiers garrisoned there in the mid-eighteenth century. These inscriptions — names, dates, and fragmentary messages — are a quietly poignant form of historical record, offering a rare glimpse into the lives of ordinary soldiers stationed far from home in a landscape that must have seemed both spectacular and deeply foreign. The castle also features a remarkable unbroken spiral staircase said to have been designed so that a right-handed swordsman could defend it more easily from above — a detail repeated at many Scottish tower houses but no less evocative for that. The combination of Jacobite drama, military history, clan culture, and community revival makes Braemar Castle one of the most layered and human-scaled historic sites in the Scottish Highlands.