Castles of Clan Gordon Wiki
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Gordon Castle (Bog o’ Gight)
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Gordon Castle
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Location Information
Name Gordon Castle
Owner private
NGR NJ 35069 59570
Lon. & Lat. 57.621352,-3.0913577
Council Moray
Parish Bellie
Nearby Castles Letterfourie
Year built 1498
Overview map
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The lowest 13’ of the six storey tower is probably the basement of a tower built in 1498-1502 by George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly. It was called Bog o’ Gight, the windy bog, having originally stood alone in marshland crossed by a causeway. It appears from Slezer’s engraving that by the early 17th century the tower had been raised to its present height and had become one of several towers grouped around a large main block with blind arcading at second storey level above molded corbelling on which most of the building was projected out.

By this time Huntly Castle had been wrecked during the Covenant Wars and the Marquis of Huntly made this palace his main seat. Montrose and his army were here in 1645, on which occasion his teenage son, John Graham died.

Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon, commissioned John Baxter of Edinburgh to replace all but the old tower with a huge new building with a frontage almost 600’ long. Here Duchess Jane dazzled high society for several decades. Her son George became 5th Duke, but in 1836 this title dies with him, when the estates passed to his maternal nephew the 5th Duke of Richmond and Lennox. The title Duke of Gordon was revived for the son of the latter in 1876. Much of the estate was sold to the Crown in 1938 and the mansion itself was used by the army until 1948. By then water damage had so affected the main block and west wing that Sir George Gordon Lennox had them demolished in 1953, the stone being used for the dam of the Glenlatterach Reservoir. This left the old tower, wing, and the stables, laundry, and other estate buildings which now form a residence of more practical size. The east wing contains a notable octagonal room which has become a shrine hung with the company colors of the Grenadier Guards, with which Sir George and his sons served.

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