Beaufort Castle
Beaufort Castle ( Scottish Gaelic : Caisteal Duuaidh ) is a country house near Beauly , about 1.6 km north of Kiltarlity and about 18 km west of Inverness in the Scottish county of Inverness-shire (now the Highland administrative unit ). There has been a castle here since the 12th century. The current building was built in 1880 in the Scottish Baronial Style and contains older parts of the building. Beaufort Castle is the traditional family seat of Lords Lovat .
history
The earliest documented mention of the property as Downie Castle or Dounie Castle can be found in the reign of King Alexander I (1106-1124), when the castle there was besieged. The Byset family had the first castle built there. At the end of the 13th century it came into the possession of the Frasers . English troops besieged them in 1303.
In the 1650s Dounie Castle was by the troops of Oliver Cromwell in the wake of its invasion of Scotland attacked and burned.
The Fraser estate was inherited by Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat , (approx. 1667–1747) in 1699. Under the name “The Fox”, Lord Lovat was deeply involved in the Jacobite movement , whose goal was the restoration of the House of Stuart as Was kings of Scotland and England. Lord Lovat fled to France , joined James Stuart, the "Old Pretender" , and converted to Catholicism . He managed to attract Scottish nobles to his cause by smuggling news into Scotland, but his activities earned him ten years in prison in France. When he returned to Scotland in 1714, he evidently swore off the Jacobite cause and got his lands back. In the 1740s, he hired architect William Adam to design a new house on the site of Dounie Castle. This was Adam's last job and this project only continued until the building blocks were delivered to the construction site. Construction was never started because of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Lord Lovat again switched sides and aided the Jacobites, but was captured and executed after the Battle of Culloden . Dounie Castle was razed by the Duke of Cumberland and the property was forfeited to the Crown.
From 1746 the property was administered by the Forfeited Estate Commissioners , who had been appointed by Parliament, and a small house was built for the factor in place of the ruined castle . In 1774 Lord Lovat's son, Simon Fraser of Lovat (1726–1782), who had commanded the 78th Fraser Highlanders for the British Army, got the property back. Proposals for a new mansion from this site were pursued in 1777 but never carried out. In 1815 Thomas Fraser (1802-1875) inherited the property and in 1854 was reappointed Lord Lovat. In 1839 he commissioned the architect William Burn to expand the house and make improvements to the property. His son, Simon Fraser, 13th Lord Lovat (1828-1887), had today's Beaufort Castle built based on drawings by James Maitland Wardrop , with part of the house from the 18th century being integrated.
This country house was sold in 1994 by the 15th Lord Lovat to Ann Gloag , the director of the Stagecoach Group , in order to be able to pay inheritance tax.
description
The Scottish Baronial Style country house includes a Roman Catholic chapel . The remains of Dounie Castle stand next to the house and consist of a single wall, 11 meters long and 1.5 meters high, with a plaque that says, “These are the ruins of Castle Downie, the former fortress of the Frasers of Lovat , built around 1400 and destroyed by Cumberland after the Battle of Culloden ”.
Historic Scotland has listed the house as a Category A Historic Building. The property is listed on the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Garden and Designed Landscape - entry . In: Historic Scotland .
- ↑ a b Entry on Beaufort Castle in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
- ↑ John Fleming: Robert Adam and His Circle . John Murray, 1962. pp. 63-64.
- ↑ a b c Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
- ^ Lord Lovat died knowing that the ancestral home would have to go. Debts force sale of Beaufort Castle . In: The Herald . June 1, 1995. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
- ↑ Beaufort Castle . In: Gazetteer for Scotland . Retrieved March 8, 2017.
Web links
Coordinates: 57 ° 27 ′ 11 " N , 4 ° 29 ′ 24" W.