Hatton Castle

Hatton Castle stands in the rolling farmland of Aberdeenshire, four and a half kilometres south-east of Turriff. Originally called Balquholly Castle, it was renamed in 1814 after the land passed to the Duff family. The present mansion was built between 1812 and 1814 on earlier foundations, creating a three-storey stone house with round corner towers. Its basement holds a wine cellar and gun room, while the attic contains four bedrooms and a bathroom. A glass cupola above the stone staircase lights the ground-floor hall. The estate traces its origins to Robert the Bruce in the early 14th century. The lands were granted to Patrick de Monte Alto, whose name became Mowat. By the 16th century the site was known as Balquholly, and records show a castle there by the early 1500s. Alexander Duff bought the estate in 1709, though the transfer finished in 1729. The Duffs kept the property until it was sold in 2020. Visitors walk through the castellated mansion and its landscaped gardens. A baluster sundial from 1703 stands in the grounds beside a late-18th-century coach house. A square home farm was designed in 1828 by W Leslie. A Gothic mausoleum built in 1861 by A & W Reid completes the group of historic structures. The mansion itself is a category A listed building, and its gardens appear in Scotland’s Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes.