Qualla: Dundarg Castle

Dundarg Castle: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0. Dun dearg. Red fort. The Gaelic name names the stone - the warm reddish sandstone of this North-East Aberdeenshire headland, cliffs twenty metres high on three sides, the North Sea beating at their base. Charles McKean called Dundarg Castle Scotland's answer to Tintagel, and the comparison fits more than the architecture: both are dramatic clifftop seats that have lived through more histories than any single ruin should reasonably hold. W. Douglas Simpson named Dundarg one of the nine castles of the Knuckle - that rocky north-east elbow of Aberdeenshire where the coast turns south toward the gannet colonies of Troup Head.

Read more: Dundarg Castle on Qualla

Image: Richard Webb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dundarg Castle: Layers Older Than Stone Walls

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anne Burgess, CC BY-SA 2.0. Before any castle, there was an Iron Age promontory fort here. The triangle of gently sloping ground at the headland's neck, flanked by steep falls and joined to a flat-topped extension running out to sea, is exactly the shape of land Iron Age communities chose for defence. The 1...

Read more: Dundarg Castle on Qualla

Image: Anne Burgess | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dundarg Castle: The Comyns and the Bruce

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jo and Steve Turner, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the 13th century the Comyn family - one of the most powerful kindreds in pre-Bruce Scotland - built the castle. The Comyns lost everything in the wars of independence. Robert the Bruce dismantled Dundarg in 1308, almost certainly during the campaign that broke Comyn power in t...

Read more: Dundarg Castle on Qualla

Image: Jo and Steve Turner | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dundarg Castle: What the Excavations Showed

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anne Burgess, CC BY-SA 2.0. W. Douglas Simpson led excavations here in 1911-12 and again in 1950-51. He found medieval objects layered in the rubble - evidence not of one destruction but two, the work of Bruce's men over the work of Comyn builders, then Moray's destruction over Beaumont's hurried 1334 rebui...

Read more: Dundarg Castle on Qualla

Image: Anne Burgess | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dundarg Castle: The Modern House on the Bailey

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anne Burgess, CC BY-SA 2.0. The site was finally abandoned in the mid-17th century. For nearly three centuries the headland was left to grass and gulls. Then in 1938 Wing Commander David Vaughan Carnegie built himself a house on part of the old castle ground, using stone reportedly salvaged from the demolis...

Read more: Dundarg Castle on Qualla

Image: Anne Burgess | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dundarg Castle: Standing on the Headland

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anne Burgess, CC BY-SA 2.0. Reach the site by foot from New Aberdour, two kilometres south-west - the village whose church gave Dundarg its stone. The cliffs to either side of the castle drop straight to dark sandstone shelves and a foaming surf. Northward there is only sea, all the way to the Pentland Firt...

Read more: Dundarg Castle on Qualla

Image: Anne Burgess | CC BY-SA 2.0