Castle Croft

Castle Croft once stood five kilometres south-west of Insch in Aberdeenshire. The Leslie family owned the land from the late 1400s. By the early 1600s the Leith family lived there before moving to Leith Hall in 1650. The castle had fallen into ruins by 1724. In 1842 the last remains were cleared away. No trace of the castle remains at the site today. The farmland around New Leslie shows no visible signs of its former presence. The Leiths later built Leith Hall, which still stands nearby. The location is marked only by a field boundary and a single mature beech tree. Visitors walk quiet farm tracks to reach the area. The beech tree stands beside a stone dyke on the edge of a barley field. In summer the field is golden and the tree casts long shade. The view stretches across rolling Aberdeenshire countryside. The nearest village, Insch, lies five kilometres to the north-east.