Gordon Castle - History

History

The original castle was built by George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly in the 1470s and enlarged by his grandson.

John Adam (architect) was commissioned with the French architect Abraham Roumieu to redesign the castle in 1764 but this did not come to fruition. Eventually the commission fell to the lesser-known Edinburgh architect, John Baxter, who rebuilt it in 1769 for the 4th Duke of Gordon. The central four storey block incorporated a six-storey medieval tower called the Bog-of-Gight, and was flanked by a pair of two-storey wings. The main facade was 568 feet (173 metres) long. Most of the castle has been demolished, but the Bog-of-Gight and one of the wings—now a detached medium sized country house in its own right—survive.

Read more about this topic:  Gordon Castle

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    You that would judge me do not judge alone
    This book or that, come to this hallowed place
    Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
    Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
    Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
    And say my glory was I had such friends.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)