Findlater Castle

Findlater Castle does not so much sit on the cliff as clings to it, and the history behind it is stranger than the ruin lets on.

The first mention of a stronghold here dates to 1246, and King Alexander III had it repaired in the 1260s to guard against Viking invasion. It did not go to plan. The Norwegians took and held the castle for some time, before losing their grip on Scotland after Largs.

What survives today is mostly 15th century, when Walter Ogilvy obtained a licence to repair and rebuild the castle from James II of Scotland in February 1445. The Ogilvies held on for two centuries, and the family drama that followed makes any soap opera look tame. James Ogilvy, Laird of Findlater lost his inheritance to John Gordon, a son of the Earl of Huntly, after making a plan to imprison his father in a cellar to deprive him of sleep and drive him insane to obtain his lands. Gordon then took possession of the castle and lands — and promptly imprisoned his own new wife, the widow he had just married.

That kind of behaviour tends to catch up with a person. In 1562, Mary Queen of Scots sent an army to winkle Gordon out. The Earl of Huntly died on the battlefield and Sir John Gordon was captured… beheaded in the presence of the Queen.

By the mid-1600s the Ogilvies had decamped to the more comfortable Cullen House, and Findlater was left to the gulls and the weather. It has been falling apart, beautifully, ever since.

Sources

• Aberdeenshire Council. Findlater Castle. Interpretive information board, Findlater Castle, Sandend, Aberdeenshire. Viewed 5 Sept. 2026.
• “Findlater Castle.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Findlater_Castle. Accessed 5 Sept. 2026.