Corgarff Castle

By B. R. Forbes, Clan Historian & Storyteller

Corgarff Castle stands alone on a windswept rise above the valley of Strathdon, its stark white walls and star-shaped enclosure set in sharp relief against the heathered hills. Corgarff is the austere and stoic elder of the family—spare in manner, uncomplaining in hardship, and shaped by a lifetime of loyalty and loss.

Corgarff's claim on the Forbes name is more complex than that of any other house in this book. The castle was not built by the Forbeses, and for much of its history their connection to it rested on lease, occupation, seizure, or litigation rather than secure hereditary ownership. Only briefly did they possess it outright.

Yet no other house carries greater weight in the family's memory. None has done more to shape how the world remembers the Forbes name.

From ancient times, the land of the Forest of Corgarff belonged to the Earls of Mar and was used as a hunting reserve. Its fate turned on the ambitions of one man: Alexander Stewart, who secured the earldom in 1404 through a marriage forced upon Isabel Douglas, Countess of Mar, after he had stormed her castle at Kildrummy. He held Mar only in his wife's right, and his position remained legally fragile.

In 1426, hoping to secure the succession for his illegitimate son Thomas, he resigned the earldom to King James I and received it back under a new grant — one bound by a fateful condition: should Alexander die without a qualifying heir, the earldom would revert directly to the Crown. His son Thomas died childless in 1430. Alexander followed him in 1435, and the whole of Mar, Corgarff included, passed into royal hands, precisely as the clause required. There it remained for over seventy years, until 1507, when James IV granted the Forest of Corgarff to Alexander Elphinstone, later 1st Lord Elphinstone.

The Elphinstones raised the first tower on this ground, sometime around 1530. This was a three-story rectangular tower house, typical of mid‑sixteenth‑century residences. This included a hall on the upper floor, service rooms below, and a small courtyard with ancillary buildings.

Corgarff commanded the vital pass between Deeside and Speyside, precisely the kind of strategic location that required a trusted hand. The Forbes and Elphinstone families were bound by more than mere convenience. Elizabeth Barlow, an Englishwoman who had come to Scotland in the train of Margaret Tudor, had been married to Alexander Elphinstone, 1st Lord Elphinstone, killed at Flodden in 1513. As his widow, she went on to marry John, 6th Lord Forbes, and became the mother of "Black" Arthur Forbes, owner of the Putachie estate that would one day become Castle Forbes itself.

It was here, on Elphinstone-built ground, that a family called Forbes of Towie first made its home — and their connection to Corgarff proved to be more than mere tenancy. Sometime before 1561, Lord Elphinstone conveyed the lands of Corgarff to John Forbes of Towie, who that year resigned them to his son Alexander, reserving his own liferent — the standard form of Scots heritable succession.

That this was genuine ownership, not mere tenancy, is confirmed by a 1596 inquest finding that Alexander had died "vest and seized as of fee" in the lands of Corriehoul and the adjoining Forest of Corgarff — though the castle itself, exempt from such widow's-terce inquests, goes unmentioned. It was this real, heritable claim to the land that made it "absolutely correct," as a contemporary account of 1571 had it, to call Corgarff Castle "the house of Towie." The name of Towie itself, though, had originated elsewhere, a short distance away, on the lands of Over and Nether Towie in Strathdon. These lands had passed to the family in 1475, when John, Earl of Mar and Garioch, granted them to Duncan Forbes of Drumallachie — himself the son of Alastair Cam Forbes, who had won the neighboring estate of Brux a generation earlier. It was from this earlier inheritance, predating any Forbes connection to Corgarff by nearly a century, that the family took its territorial style, becoming, in the fashion of the age, "Forbes of Towie" — a name they carried with them when Corgarff itself later came into their hands.

This is the background to one of the most tragic events in the history of the House of Forbes. In 1567, Scottish Protestant lords forced Queen Mary to abdicate. This was the start of what was called the Marian Wars that tore Scotland apart. The Catholic George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly, supported the deposed Queen while Protestant, William, 7th Lord Forbes, supported her half-brother James Stewart, Earl of Moray, the Regent for her infant son James. This brought the former allies into direct conflict.

One of the bloodiest was an ambush on October 10, 1571, at Tilliangus near Druminnor. Under the Earl of Huntly’s brother Adam Gordon of Auchindoun, the Gordons killed dozens of Forbeses, including Black Arthur Forbes of Druminnor.

In the weeks after Tillieangus, Adam Gordon of Auchindoun dispatched his trusted Captain Thomas Kerr to Corgarff Castle. With her husband away with his Forbes kindred, his wife Margaret Campbell Forbes held the tower against him. Gordon's men agreed to a truce of twelve hours, during which Margaret sent a boy to fetch word from her husband on what terms they might surrender the house. But even as the truce held, Gordon's men quietly piled grain, timber, and heather against the walls, and when the hours ran out, they set it all ablaze. Twenty-seven people died inside — Margaret, her children, and her household among them — with only a single woman escaping through the flames, and even she was smothered against the house's outer wall as she fled. It was a betrayal even by the standards of a brutal war, and it would echo through Scottish balladry for centuries in “Edom o Gordon,” and through Forbes memory ever since.

Oh pity on yon fair castle,

That was biggit wi’ stane and lime;

And wae for Lady Campbell herself,

Burnt wi’ her bairnies nine.

The Forbes connection with Corgarff did not end with the death of Margaret Campbell Forbes of Towie. The family retained heritable rights to the surrounding lands of Corriehoul and the Forest of Corgarff. With those rights came an enduring conviction that the castle itself properly belonged to them.

In May 1607, Alexander Forbes of Towie—a later laird of the same name and, by family tradition, the seventh and last to bear it—acted on that belief. With a band of companions, he attacked Corgarff, battered down the gate with hammers and rams, and seized the fortalice from Alexander, 4th Lord Elphinstone.

The Elphinstones responded through the law. On June 18, 1607, the Master of Elphinstone petitioned the Privy Council on his father's behalf, accusing Forbes and his companions of forcing the gate and fortifying the castle as “a house of war” frequented by “Highland thieves and limmers.” The complaint makes clear that, whatever rights the Forbeses believed they held in the surrounding lands, legal title to the castle itself remained with the Elphinstones. Their possession of Corgarff had been won—and could be maintained—only by force.

However, the Elphinstones’ hold on Corgarff, and on the wider barony of Kildrummy of which it formed a part, was itself weakening. From 1587, John, 2nd Earl of Mar, had pursued a long legal campaign arguing that the original royal grants to the Elphinstones had never been properly valid, ultimately securing a ruling from the Lords of Session in 1626 in his favor. Rather than contest the judgment further, Lord Elphinstone and his son negotiated a settlement: in exchange for 48,000 merks Scots, they agreed to remove from the barony and castles of Kildrummy and Corgarff alike, delivering up the keys to the Earl of Mar. After 120 years in Elphinstone hands, Corgarff passed to the Erskines.

Even after the 1626 settlement, traces of the old arrangement lingered. Although the Earls of Mar had recovered Corgarff, Alexander, Master of Elphinstone, retained certain rights within the barony, probably through a wadset—a Scots form of heritable security for debt. In 1646 he issued a warrant authorizing the collection of rents, kain (non-cash payment of rent), and other customary dues from his tenants in Corgarff and Kildrummy. Whether any of those tenants were Forbeses of Towie, still farming lands their family had occupied for generations, the record does not say. Given the family's long association with the district, however, the possibility is far from remote.

Corgarff remained part of the Mar estates through the upheavals of the seventeenth century. Already described as ruinous, it was occupied by the Marquis of Montrose's forces in 1645. Around 1689 or 1690 it was burned again, this time to prevent its use by government troops.

Although never fully restored, the castle still served John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar, as a rallying point for the rebellion of 1715. From Corgarff his followers marched to Braemar, where, on September 6, 1715, he raised the standard for the deposed Stuart monarchy and launched an attempt to overthrow the British government. The rebellion's failure brought about the forfeiture of the Mar estates, setting the stage for Corgarff's eventual return to Forbes hands.

The Forbeses who finally brought Corgarff into lawful Forbes ownership were not the Towie lairds who had lived and fought there, but their cousins of the Skellater branch—a separate cadet family descended from the Forbeses of Barnes. In 1604, George Forbes, second son of William Forbes, 2nd Laird of Barnes, received a charter for the neighboring lands of Skellater from Alexander, Master of Elphinstone, with the consent of his father, Lord Elphinstone, whose family still held Corgarff. John Erskine, Earl of Mar, confirmed that charter in 1626, the same year the barony of Kildrummy, including Corgarff, passed from the Elphinstones back to the Erskines. From the outset, therefore, the Forbeses of Skellater held their estate as immediate neighbors—and feudal vassals—of whichever family possessed Corgarff, first the Elphinstones and later the Erskines.

That relationship endured for more than a century. By 1738, George Forbes, 5th Laird of Skellater, had acquired Corgarff itself. For the first time in the castle’s history, a Forbes held undisputed legal title to the fortress rather than merely occupying it, leasing it, or seizing it by force. The surviving records do not reveal exactly how the property passed from the forfeited Mar estates into Skellater hands. Yet after more than a century as neighboring landowners, the Forbeses of Skellater were natural successors when the opportunity arose.

George Forbes's life was shaped by the same current of Jacobite loyalty that ran through this corner of Aberdeenshire. He married Christian Gordon, daughter of John Gordon of Glenbucket, the celebrated Jacobite commander who fought in both the 1715 and 1745 rebellions. The marriage united two of the district's most devoted Stuart families.

When Charles Edward Stuart raised his standard in 1745 in an attempt to overthrow the British government, George joined him almost immediately. He received a commission as lieutenant colonel and fought at Culloden, where a cannon shot killed the horse beneath him. Corgarff itself became part of the campaign. It served briefly as a Jacobite arms depot before being abandoned, then was besieged by William Henry Kerr, Earl of Ancrum, under the orders of the Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, during the government's advance through Aberdeenshire.

The government's acquisition of Corgarff is usually dated to 1746, when it purchased the castle outright from Forbes of Skellater. Yet as late as 1748, General Humphrey Bland, preparing to garrison the castle, wrote to the Lord Advocate on the assumption that Forbes's estate had already been forfeited to the Crown. However, he was informed that no such forfeiture had occurred in law, since Forbes had been neither attainted by Act of Parliament nor convicted by trial. This may have been a simple misunderstanding on Bland's part or the purchase was not actually completed until the forfeiture question had been settled.

The British government transformed Corgarff into a military barracks. It added the striking star-shaped perimeter wall, built with projecting salients and numerous gun loops. This design gave Corgarff its distinctive modern silhouette. The castle became an outpost of the Mar Castle garrison, part of a chain of forts intended to suppress Jacobite activity, monitor cattle routes, and enforce new laws banning Highland dress and weaponry.

In an echo of its past, the long Forbes association with Corgarff did not end with the 1746 sale to the British government. One of the castle’s later barrackmasters was himself a Forbes: Charles Forbes, second Laird of Auchernach (1730—1794). He served at Corgarff and died there on May 5, 1794. His burial in Strathdon closed a final, unexpected chapter in the centuries‑long Forbes connection to the castle.

Corgarff remained in military use until 1831, long after the Jacobite threat had faded. It served briefly as a distillery, then as housing for estate workers. The surrounding land eventually became part of the Delnadamph estate, owned by the Stockdale family.

In 1961, the Stockdale family placed Corgarff Castle into state care. It is now managed by Historic Environment Scotland, which has restored the tower and its barracks to reflect their eighteenth-century appearance. Visitors today encounter a stark, whitewashed tower within its star-shaped wall. Inside, the rooms are furnished as they would have been during the government occupation, with muskets, uniforms, and barrack beds evoking the castle’s long military chapter.

Corgarff Castle is a place of stark beauty and hard history. This stoic elder stands as a reminder of the turbulent centuries that shaped both the country and the House of Forbes—where the story of a family and the story of a nation converge in stone.

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Excerpted from Forbes: A Story of Stone by B. R. Forbes, copyright 2026.