Inverugie Castle

Inverugie Castle stands on a low mound beside the River Ugie, two miles from Peterhead on Scotland’s north-east coast. The remains include the original motte, called Castle Hill, which rises only three metres above the riverbank. A later stone castle once stood further south, built by the Keith Earl Marischals in the 17th century. The Cheyne family had held the site since the 13th or 14th century, though their earlier fortress Ravenscraig lies a mile away. The Keiths took over after marriage to an heiress in 1345, linking Inverugie to Dunnottar Castle. The castle’s history is marked by shifts in power and neglect. After the Jacobite Rebellion the Keith lands were forfeited, and the estate passed to James Ferguson of Pitfour in the 18th century. The fifth Laird stripped earlier restorations, and by 1890 storms had left the ruins unsafe. In 1899 the remaining walls were deliberately weakened and much of the structure removed. Charles McKean later called the lost building a splendid Renaissance chateau with angle towers and a stair turret. Robert Burns’s father trained as a gardener here before moving to Ayrshire. Today the site is a quiet ruin with grassy slopes and crumbling stonework. Visitors walk the low mound of Castle Hill and trace the foundations of the later castle to the south. The River Ugie winds past the foot of the mound, and the North Sea lies nearby. The scattered stones and hollows show where walls once stood, while the open landscape offers views across farmland to the coast.