Little Tarrel is a small, recently-restored L-plan house, originally built in the mid 16th century; an inscription beneath a first-floor window gives the date 155- ?. Reid (1894) assumes that the missing digit is a 9 (Name Book, however, gives 1550). The building was subsequently sub-divided and modified on more than one occasion; an external forestair was introduced and part of the ground floor was set aside for farming purposes, an alteration that involved the removal of a vault and of an internal stair in an area that later collapsed; but much of the orginal detailing still survives, most notably in the vaulted kitchen and the first-floor chamber above it in the E wing.
George Gordon, 1st Marquis of Huntly held the barony of Delny which included Little Tarrel.
