Qualla: Corgarff Castle https://qualla.com/corgarff-castle en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/t/corgarff-castle-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Corgarff Castle https://qualla.com/corgarff-castle Corgarff Castle: Introduction https://qualla.com/corgarff-castle/ Photo credit Karora, Public domain. The ballad begins with a warning. 'Turn again, turn again, turn again, I bid thee / If ye burn Auchindoun, Huntly he will head thee.' But the song could equally apply to Corgarff, the castle where the consequences of feuding turned most terrible. Standing by the Lecht road that crosses the high pass between Strathdon and Tomintoul in Aberdeenshire, Corgarff Castle has been built, burned, garrisoned, burned again, and rebuilt so many times that its walls are a palimpsest of Scotland's bloodiest centuries. The worst day in its history produced a ballad that has been sung for over four hundred years.

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Image: Karora | Public domain

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/t/corgarff-castle-wp/gfjt-corgarff-castle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Corgarff Castle: Twenty-Six Dead at the Tower https://qualla.com/corgarff-castle/ Photo credit Stuart Yeates from Oxford, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Elphinstone family built the castle around 1530 and leased it to the Forbes of Towie. The Forbes and the Gordons were enemies -- a feud woven deep into the fabric of northeast Scotland. In 1571, Adam Gordon of Auchindoun came to Corgarff while the Forbes laird was away. What ...

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Image: Stuart Yeates from Oxford, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/t/corgarff-castle-wp/gfjt-corgarff-castle-twenty-six-dead-at-the-tower.mp3 0:06 2 full Corgarff Castle: A Castle That Would Not Stay Down https://qualla.com/corgarff-castle/ Photo credit Stanley Howe, CC BY-SA 2.0. Corgarff's history after the burning reads like a catalogue of Scottish conflict. In May 1607, Alexander Forbes of Towie recaptured the castle from Alexander, 4th Lord Elphinstone, using hammers and battering rams to break down the gate, then filling it with what the records call...

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Image: Stanley Howe | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/t/corgarff-castle-wp/gfjt-corgarff-castle-a-castle-that-would-not-stay-down.mp3 0:06 3 full Corgarff Castle: Redcoats on the Lecht https://qualla.com/corgarff-castle/ Photo credit Anne Burgess, CC BY-SA 2.0. After the final Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1746, the government converted Corgarff into a garrison post. A star-shaped curtain wall was added around the tower -- the same defensive geometry imposed on castles across the defeated Highlands. Government troops were stationed her...

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Image: Anne Burgess | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/t/corgarff-castle-wp/gfjt-corgarff-castle-redcoats-on-the-lecht.mp3 0:06 4 full Corgarff Castle: The Ballad Endures https://qualla.com/corgarff-castle/ Photo credit Camer01, CC BY-SA 3.0. Corgarff Castle is now a scheduled monument managed by Historic Environment Scotland and open to the public. The star-shaped wall, the garrison rooms, and the tower house stand in a landscape of exceptional bleakness and beauty -- high moorland where the wind carries the sound of...

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Image: Camer01 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/t/corgarff-castle-wp/gfjt-corgarff-castle-the-ballad-endures.mp3 0:06 5 full