Park House

Park House stands four miles north-west of Aberchirder in Aberdeenshire. It began as a 13th-century hunting lodge in the Royal Forest of Banff before becoming a Z-plan tower house in the 16th century. The castle was rebuilt in 1717 and enlarged again in 1723 and 1829. Sir William Gordon, the third baronet, fought for the Jacobites and was executed after Culloden. The estate passed to Clan Duff and remained in their hands for nearly 400 years. The castle’s oldest part is a six-sided tower built in 1563. Inside, a medieval whetstone forms an interior arch, and Victorian additions sit beside 12 Georgian windows. Roughly 45 acres of grounds still surround the house, including the Park Burn and sycamore trees planted 250 years ago. The property has been owned by artists, a dentist and hoteliers over the last half-century. Visitors find a rambling baronial mansion with a 16th-century core. The whetstone arch and Georgian windows show layers of history. The grounds include a burn and ancient trees, giving a sense of the estate’s former scale.