Pitsligo Castle
By B. R. Forbes, Clan Historian & Storyteller
Pitsligo Castle is the noble fallen warrior who paid dearly for choosing honor over comfort. Its broken walls and roofless chambers do not speak of neglect so much as consequence of loyalty to a doomed cause. The castle represents conscience—a reminder that some legacies are measured not in wealth but in principle.
Pitsligo Castle stands in weathered silence on the north-east coast of Scotland overlooking the North Sea.
The lands lie within Buchan, one of Scotland's ancient Gaelic mormaerdoms that became Norman earldoms. Around 1212, the earldom passed out of that native line when William Comyn married Margaret, Countess of Buchan in her own right, bringing Buchan into his powerful family. Comyn became one of medieval Scotland's most powerful noble houses, holding Buchan for nearly a century. Their downfall was equally dramatic: their support for the English cause during the Wars of Independence, and the killing of John "the Red" Comyn by Robert Bruce in 1306, brought catastrophic retribution.
The Crown seized the earldom from the Comyns in the aftermath. This became one of the most consequential redistributions of land in Scottish history. This was how Buchan's constituent baronies, Pitsligo among them, became available for the Crown to regrant.
The lands, including territory later identified as Pitsligo, eventually passed to the Earls of Ross. In 1375, Sir Alexander Fraser of Cowie and Durris married Lady Joanna, younger daughter and co-heiress of the Earl of Ross, and through this marriage acquired Philorth and Cairnbulg Castle — the family's principal Buchan holdings from that point forward. William Fraser, 2nd Laird of Philorth, held Pitsligo among his family's Buchan lands. His daughter, Agnes, was his sole heir. In 1423, Agnes married Sir William Forbes of Kinaldie (or Kynnaldy), a younger brother of Sir Alexander, later 1st Lord Forbes.
Part of her dowry was land granted through a series of charters: James Douglas, Lord of Balveny, confirming lands in the barony of Aberdour in 1423; William Fraser's own charter of Petslegach (Pitsligo) and Achmacludy the following year; and King James I's royal confirmation in 1426. In 1429, William's existing holding of Kynnaldy in Mar — separate from Pitsligo and acquired from his brother a decade earlier — was regranted to him directly by the Crown, freeing it from the Earl of Mar's superiority. During his lifetime, Sir William was styled “of Kynnaldy,” but was reckoned by later genealogists as also the 1st Laird of Pitsligo. Sir William began building Pitsligo Castle in 1424, with a fortified tower, typical of its era. The early structure was a substantial tower house measuring roughly 52 feet by 37 feet in breadth, with walls about 10 feet thick. The interior followed the vertical arrangement common to Scottish tower houses of the period. At the lowest level was a vaulted kitchen, twelve feet high. The upper dining hall rose about twenty‑five feet. Above that was a large sleeping chamber that once held twenty‑four beds.
Over the following two centuries, successive lairds transformed Pitsligo from a functional defensive stronghold into one of the finest residences in the north-east of Scotland—a process that unfolded in two distinct phases.
The first came in the 1570s, when Alexander, 7th Laird of Pitsligo (c.1535—1587), incorporated the original tower-house with a large quadrangular mansion, in a position near the west end of the south front. This mansion encloses an inner courtyard measuring 98 feet east and west, by 54 feet north and south. The principal buildings lie on the west and north sides.
Midway in the west front is the barrel-vaulted entrance, over seven and a half feet wide and almost twenty-two feet in length. At the north-east angle of the building, he also built a round tower over eighteen and a half in diameter with walls three and a half feet thick. Within the courtyard, at this corner, he added a square porch or staircase tower.
This transformed the structure from a simple tower house into an L-plan layout with enhanced defensive enclosures. Guardrooms lined the low, vaulted passage leading to the courtyard. This period also saw the addition of a plaque bearing the royal arms of James VI dated 1577. The plaque was a pointed declaration of loyalty to the Scottish Crown.
In 1600, his son John, 8th Laird of Pitsligo, received a charter from King James VI that combined the lands of Pitsligo (Petsligo) and Kynnaldy into a single Barony of Pitsligo. He added another stone plaque dated 1603, with the King’s royal arms of the United Kingdom, acknowledging the Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland. In 1633, his son, Alexander, received a patent by King Charles that granted “the style, title, honour, and dignity of Lord Forbes of Pitsligo.” This elevation prompted a second, more ambitious construction phase. In 1634, he built the nearby kirk to serve the new parish of Pitsligo. The kirk, sometimes called Peathill, is plain, with local rubble masonry, which retains traces of lime harl, and red sandstone frames around the windows and doors. He affixed his initials in stone, “A. L. P.” (Alexander Lord Pitsligo) in the date stone.
Above the front entrance, between the two windows, Lord Pitsligo embedded his coat of arms with three muzzled bears in the upper-left and lower-right quadrants. In contrast to the simplicity of the building, the gable is surmounted by heavily ornamented bellcote with a mix of Gothic and Renaissance features.
Originally, the east and west galleries were accessed by external stairs. In 1793, these were removed and new interior stairs were built during a major renovation. The timberwork for the loft was removed in 1890 and built into the aisle of the new church, where it still survives.
In 1635, Lord Pitsligo enlarged the medieval tower with ranges of buildings around the inner courtyard. His son, Alexander, 2nd Lord Pitsligo, finished his father's work. He added a much larger outer forecourt that was 233 feet long and 78 feet wide, added a gatehouse with gun loops, and built domestic ranges that housed the essential functions of the household. He also glazed every window, which was an extravagance at the time. The castle became one of the finest residences in north-east Scotland.
In 1663, Lord Pitsligo marked his achievement in stone on the castle’s west front. There he placed his coat of arms, showing the arms of Forbes and Fraser quartered (three bears' heads muzzled couped and three fraises), impaled with those of Buchan (three garbs). Over this shield are the initials “A.L.P.” for Alexander, second Lord Pitsligo, and M.L.Æ, for his wife, Lady Mary Ærskine, eldest daughter of the seventh Earl of Buchan.
Set above the arched entrance to the castle's outer forecourt, added in 1656, is a weathered stone bearing the initials of Alexander, 2nd Lord Pitsligo, and a curious, clipped Latin motto: HAEC CORP SYDERA MENTEM. The architectural historian W. Douglas Simpson suggested a verb — most plausibly delectant, “they delight” — had been omitted from the inscription, completing the sense: “These things delight the body; the stars delight the mind.” In hindsight, this was a fitting motto if an unintended one. The 2nd Lord Pitsligo's grandson lost the Pitsligo estate due to his contemplative, principled conviction – his mind fixed on the stars.
Alexander Forbes, 4th Lord Pitsligo (1678–1762), became a devoted religious scholar and a staunch opponent of the Act of Union. As an unwavering supporter of the exiled Stuart family, he fought in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 at Sheriffmuir and was then forced into a five-year exile. The Pitsligo estate was already bankrupt by 1700, yet financial ruin had not tempered his principles.
When Charles Edward Stuart attempted to overthrow the British government in 1745, the elderly lord once again joined the Jacobite cause. He raised recruits from among his tenants and neighbors around Pitsligo and fought at the Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746.
Following the Jacobite defeat, the British Government seized the Pitsligo estate, revoked his title, and declared him an outlaw with a reward for his capture. Hunted for sixteen years, he was never once betrayed by the people among whom he had lived his life. He died on December 21, 1762, at the age of 84. He was buried in the family vault at Pitsligo Kirk, beneath the laird's loft his great-grandfather built—the only part of his legacy that the crown could not strip away.
Pitsligo Castle and the Pitsligo estates remained in the hands of Government under the factorship of Thomas Innes of Muiryfold. In 1758, Alexander Gordon, factor to the Haddo Estates of George Gordon, 3rd Earl of Aberdeen, bought the part of the Pitsligo estates in the parish of Aberdour. He built the mansion of Aberdour House as his new seat and took the name Alexander Gordon of Aberdour.
Pitsligo Castle and the Pitsligo estates remained in the hands of Government under the factorship of Thomas Innes of Muiryfold. In 1758, Alexander Gordon, factor to the Haddo Estates of George Gordon, 3rd Earl of Aberdeen, bought the part of the Pitsligo estates in the parish of Aberdour. He built the mansion of Aberdour House as his new seat and took the name Alexander Gordon of Aberdour.
John, Master of Pitsligo, purchased the Pitsligo estates in Buchan. He kept the Upper Barony of about 8,000 acres and sold the Lower Barony (including the castle, church and the fishing town of Rosehearty) to Alexander Garden of Troup in February 1760. Two months later, Garden dismantled the castle.
In 1776, John named “Sir William Forbes of Monymusk, now Pitsligo, baronet” as his heir male in the event of his death and that of his wife, Rebecca Ogilvy of Auchiries, without issue. Sir William was the grandson of Mary, daughter of Alexander Forbes, 3rd Lord Pitsligo. John died in 1781 and his widow Rebecca Forbes renounced her life rent of Pitsligo to Sir William the next year in exchange for an annuity.
Over the next centuries, the once-proud Pitsligo Castle became a ruin. By 1967, the buildings were entirely roofless and used as stock enclosures. In 1988, American publishing magnate Malcolm Forbes purchased the castle ruins and its nine acres of gardens from farmer George Chalmers. Forbes hired architect Douglas Forrest to halt the most dangerous structural deterioration. No other renovation or preservation was attempted.
Forbes died in February 1990. In 1995, his children transferred the castle to the Pitsligo Castle Trust, a charity formed to maintain both the castle and the laird’s loft in Pitsligo Kirk. The Trust continued some stabilization work. The site is now freely accessible to visitors, with a small car park at the entrance.
Pitsligo Castle, the noble fallen warrior, is the architectural embodiment of a family known for integrity, learning, and quiet strength. From its medieval tower house to its seventeenth‑century refinements, the castle reflects the evolution of the Forbes of Pitsligo and the character of their most celebrated laird. Though now a ruin, Pitsligo remains a place of profound historical resonance—a site where loyalty was tested, principles upheld, and the Forbes legacy is etched into stone. In its weathered walls and open sky, the spirit of the Pitsligo line endures.
Excerpted from Forbes: A Story of Stone by B. R. Forbes, copyright 2026.
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