Carbisdale Castle
Carbisdale Castle is a castle in County Ross-shire, Scotland, near the Sutherland border between Loch Shin and the Dornoch Firth , across from Bonar Bridge . It was used as a youth hostel until February 2011 .
history
Mary Caroline Mitchell , widow of Captain Arthur Kindersely Blair , married George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower , 3rd Duke and 18th Earl of Sutherland, in 1889 , and became a Duchess herself (due to her first husband's name she became known as Duchess Blair ). The wedding was not welcomed by the Sutherland family. After the Duke's death in 1892 there was a lawsuit over the inheritance. The widow, practically the sole heir according to the will, was imprisoned for six weeks in London for the destruction of documents .
Eventually the parties came to an agreement. The Sutherland family undertook, among other things, to pay the widow to build a castle on the condition that it would be built outside of Sutherland. The Duchess chose a hill just across the border in Ross-shire, the Carbisdale Heights , a little north of Culrain, as the location . At this location, the castle could be seen from large parts of Sutherland County, and especially from the roads that the Sutherland family had to use on their way south. Construction began in 1906; in 1917 Carbisdale Castle was completed.
After the Duchess remarried in 1933, Colonel Theodore Salvesen, a wealthy Scottish businessman of Norwegian descent, bought the castle. When Norway was occupied by German troops during World War II , the Norwegian royal family went into exile . Salvesen made Carbisdale Castle available to King Haakon VII and Crown Prince Olav .
At the Carbisdale Conference on June 22, 1941, it was agreed that Soviet troops should occupy Norwegian territory after the war should be vacated. On October 25, 1944, the Red Army actually penetrated Norway and captured a total of 30 cities, but withdrew again after the end of the war as agreed.
After Salvesen's death, his son, Captain Harold Salvesen, inherited the castle and donated it to the Scottish Youth Hostels Association . The youth hostel was opened on June 2, 1945 and offered space for around 189 guests. In February 2011 it was closed for repairs.
SYHA sold the castle at the end of 2014; the name of the new owner was not published.
Much of the art equipment, including 17 marble sculptures and 36 Italian and Scottish paintings from the 19th century, was due to be auctioned in London on May 20, 2015. Sotheby’s experts estimated them to be worth around £ 500,000 . The proceeds came to more than a million pounds.
Furnishing
- The castle has 365 windows - one for each day of the year.
- There is a clock on each of three sides of the castle tower, just not on the side facing Sutherland.
- In the lower gallery, there were mainly Italian marble statues from around 1857 until they were sold by SYHA 19 .
- The castle also had a rich art collection; some pieces were from 1680.
- Below the large staircase is a secret door that could be opened by turning one of the statues; however, the mechanism is no longer in operation.
- Carbisdale Castle is said to have been haunted by several ghosts , including a white woman , fallen soldiers from the Battle of Carbisdale (April 6, 1650), and the music of a piper ( bagpiper ) was heard from the rock before the castle was built .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Former hostel Carbisdale Castle close to sale in: The Scotsman , December 12, 2014
- ↑ Artworks at Sutherland's Carbisdale Castle to be sold , BBC news , April 24, 2015
- ↑ Carbisdale Castle art collection sold for £ 1m , BBC news, May 22, 2015
Coordinates: 57 ° 55 ′ 32 " N , 4 ° 24 ′ 32" W.