Darnaway Castle

Darnaway Castle stands in Darnaway Forest, five kilometres southwest of Forres in Moray. The site was once Comyn land given to Thomas Randolph by King Robert I, and it has been the seat of the Earls of Moray ever since. Rebuilt in the 19th century, the castle keeps its medieval banqueting hall, once large enough for a thousand guests. The name comes from the Gaelic Taranaich, meaning ‘thunder plain’, recalling the nearby River Findhorn’s rush through a gorge. The forest supplied timber for royal artillery and ships in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. James IV often stayed at Darnaway, bringing musicians, dancers and even an African drummer to entertain his court. The castle’s great hall, built in 1450 by Archibald Douglas, Earl of Moray, still has its original hammerbeam roof, one of only two such medieval roofs left in Scotland. In 1501 the maidens of Forres came to sing for the king, and the next year the women of Darnaway danced for him. Mary, Queen of Scots held a Privy Council meeting here in 1562. A 1591 inventory lists rich furnishings: red velvet beds, silver-bound mazers, tapestry and iron shackles for prisoners. The castle also witnessed a violent feud in 1590 when the Earl of Huntly’s officers were fired upon from its walls. Visitors find the medieval hall with its hammerbeam roof and the surrounding Darnaway Forest. To the south, Randolph’s Leap marks a deep gorge where the River Findhorn rushes through. Nearby Logie Steading houses the River Findhorn Heritage Centre, telling the story of the leap. The estate still carries the 18th-century planting of over eight million pine trees by the 9th Earl of Moray. Darnaway gives its name to a street in Edinburgh’s Moray Estate, linking the castle’s past to the present.