by 
Ruined ancient Aberdour
Walking along the picturesque Fife coast, following a shallow winding river that runs along the ancient village and flows into the rocky Firth of Forth, you can “come across” a massive structure made of wild stone. This is Aberdour, a castle considered to be the second oldest, like Argyll’s Swin Castle, a fortress in Scotland .
The castle received its name (translated from the original Gaelic as “place of confluence of waters”) thanks to the settlement in which the fortress was built in its central part.
Aberdour is an example of a rather impressively sized building of a complex nature. Centuries passed and the castle acquired more and more new buildings. They were positioned as silent stone guardians of the bizarre history of the Scottish Middle Ages.
Today we can see that the fortress has been quite badly destroyed both by the ruthless passage of time and by fires and the not too caring attitude of its many owners. The current Aberdour looks like a grotesque heap of old, sometimes ruin-like, stone buildings: here and there, without any logic, they are scattered across the surface of the earth in several hundred square metres.
The main construction of the so-called “tower house” ended around 1200, but up until 1635 Aberdour was constantly being added to and reconstructed. For example, the staircase tower was erected in 1500, but the bakery, the Central Row and the outer courtyard were not completed until the 17th century.
The East Row of terraces was the last to be erected in 1635. It has been preserved like the newest extension, better than all the others. There is even a roof left here and some decorative elements which perfectly characterize the architecture of the 17th century.
The strange landscape and noticeable randomness of the buildings, striking in their absence of even a hint of a harmonious combination with each other can be simply explained: the numerous owners of the estate thought about everything, but not at all about the aesthetics of their castle and the surrounding area. That is why, when some part of the fortress fell into disrepair or simply became inconvenient for living, new construction was immediately started where the count wanted it without dismantling the old building and long maxims on the topic “won’t such an object ruin the panorama?”
Architecture of Aberdour
The architecture of Aberdour is complex, haphazard and tacky.
The oldest part, the tower house, resembles an irregular rectangle. At first, only two palisaded floors were built and the remaining two were built much later (400 years later) in the 15th century. A spiral staircase was completed, hinged loopholes were made in the walls and a kitchen was built in the basement of the tower in the 15th century.
But initially in the hall house, as the first two floors of Aberdour were called, there was only one common hall with a fireplace in the middle. Here they warmed themselves and cooked food and vassals were also located here.
The lord and his family lived on the second floor.
The exact date of the very first construction, which occurred in 1200, is determined by the specific features of the architecture typical of the 11th century: the special shape of the walls, cubic blocks of brickwork and buttresses of the north-eastern wall.
Owners of Aberdour
Years passed and along with the appearance of Aberdour its owners also changed. The very first owner was Sir Alan de Mortimer. He acquired a modest estate and a baronial title in 1126. After 14 years Mortimer started getting tired of travelling to the neighbouring village for Sunday services and built his own church near the castle.
The still surviving church bears the name of St. Fillan and was built in 1140.
How the first owner, Sir Alan de Mortimer and his family, ended managing their Aberdour estate is unknown. It is a truly mysterious story of the disappearance of any written mention of the Mortimers. One can only guess who and for what reasons all records about the first owner of the “place of confluence of waters” were deleted.
XIV Century
Aberdour had a new legal owner in the 14th century: Thomas Randolph, Earl of Murray. Randolph was a relative of King Robert the Bruce, who granted the castle to the Earl. In 1342 Murray’s grandson gave his lands to Sir William Douglas of Lidderdale. Almost 10 years later Douglas gave the barony to Sir James Douglas of Dalkeith, who was his nephew. It was only in 1386 that both possessions (Aberdour and Dalkeith) were united into one barony and it was inherited by the fourth Lord Dalkeith, James Douglas in 1456. He restored the title Earl of Morton.
Earls of Morton
The first Earl of Morton, having become related to King James the First through his marriage to his deaf-mute daughter, renovated the castle and built several halls within it. Then, the second Earl of Morton took up the arrangement of the estate: in 1500 he ordered the construction of the southern row of buildings and the addition of another tower staircase.
The third Earl of Morton, Sir James Douglas, had no time for construction: (having fallen out of favour with King James V) and he was put under house arrest in Inverness for two years. In addition, due to debts, the Earl of Morton was dispossessed of Aberdour.
In 1542, upon the death of James V and with the help of James Hamilton and George Douglas of Pittendreich, the third Earl of Morton restored his legal rights to the castle. The payment to one of the assistants was the title of Count: the fourth Earl of Morton became George Douglas from Pittendreich and married the daughter of the third Earl of Morton.
The new owner added new buildings to the old tower and received a complex structure which today is considered the Central Row of the castle. And only 12 years later, in 1564, the Mortons’ right to own the lands of Aberdour and Dalkeith was officially approved by a decree of Her Majesty, Mary Stuart.
The seventh Earl of Morton also had a hand in the refurbishment of the fortress. Since the Earl paid for the support of Charles I with the lands of Dalkeith, finally settling in Aberdour, Morton built the Eastern Row and planted two gardens: a terraced one in the south, and a so-called walled one in the eastern part of the estate.
Destruction and fire
In addition to frequent transformations, Aberdour also had very difficult times associated with the destruction of the castle. Thus, a fire that broke out in Aberdour from a candle dropped by a servant damaged not only the wooden floors severely, but also the stonework. For two years the castle stood burnt and black, until the eleventh Earl of Morton remembered his responsibilities as master and invited the architect, James Smith, to the estate. Initially, it was planned to demolish the most damaged buildings from the Central Row and the Tower, but in the end everything remained in place and over the course of thirteen years of repairs, only the Eastern Row was restored.
Another fire occurred in the castle in 1715 which was much more serious and total. The Scottish government troops stationed in Aberdour set one of the rooms on fire accidentally and the flames spread very quickly throughout almost the entire estate.
This time there was nothing to restore. The twelfth earl owner simply bought a neighbouring estate and named it “Aberdour House” in honour of the burnt castle and moved there to live.
Aberdour in the 20th century
Deserted and unkempt, Aberdour fell into even greater decline. Finally, by 1924 the condition of the Scottish medieval monument had fallen into such a deplorable state that the historical heritage of the past, along with the gardens, was taken into the care of Historic Scotland.
