Aldbar Castle

Aldbar Castle was a 16th-century tower house two miles southwest of Brechin in Angus. It stands on land that had belonged to the Crammond family since the 13th century before John Lyon, 8th Lord Glamis, bought the estate in 1575. Sir Thomas Lyon, his son, served as Treasurer of Scotland from 1585 to 1595 and built the castle late in the 16th century. Later owners included the Sinclair and Young families, followed by the Chalmers family in the 18th century. The castle gained wider notice when the artist Clarkson Stanfield painted it in 1801. Patrick Chalmers enlarged the house in 1810, and his son added Baronial-style additions between 1844 and 1854. A 13th-century grave slab from the castle’s chapel now lies in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Visitors can still see the remains of the tower house set in rolling farmland. The gracious stonework of the 19th-century additions shows the Chalmers family’s ambition. The site offers quiet walks among the fields where the castle once commanded the view.