Castle in 1500

Historic Scotland

Tour Aberdour Castle

Built in the 14th century, Aberdour Castle sits near Aberdour in Fife on the Firth of Forth and had been in Douglas ownership from 1342 until it passed into state care in 1924. It comprises of three distinct parts, the latter of which is still inhabited and its grounds include a 16th century beehive, a well, gardens and walled terraces. In 1725, the Douglas family moved to Aberdour House. It has also been home to the Earl of Moray.
( Map of this area )

Aberdour

The King has written a braid letter,
and sealed it with his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
was walking on the strand.

Seven hundred years have swept along the coasts of Fife since that day when the King's messenger came across the sands below the Hawk Craig at Aberdour with the command which was to send Sir Patrick Spens on his mission to Norway. Was the strand as gently lovely as it is now ? One thinks it must have been, for that beach- now popularly known as the "Silver Sands" - has so untouched, so immemorial an aspect that one can believe that it has lain pleasantly there without change for centuries on the banks of the Firth. Across these silver sands - long before the days of Sir Patrick and long after -the monks must have walked when they awaited the ferry to their island monastery of Inchcolm. And before their day the Roman legionaries who were encamped upon Dunearn Hill must sometimes have come down to the water's edge at this spot and there - on a soft beach protected by the arms of sheltering headlands from the blustering winds - would find relaxation from their garrison duties in this northern outpost of their empire.

Such thoughts, such imaginings take us far back in history as we wander along the pleasant strand at Aberdour. But there are things more visible than imaginings, things which we can see and touch which here take us back through the centuries in one breathtaking flight.

800 Years of Worship

A few minutes' walk from Sir Patrick's strand brings us to the church of St Fillan, one of Scotland's most ancient places of worship. It was already 100 years old, the little church of St Fillan, the "miniature cathedral", when the King's braid letter was written.

The Aberdour church of St Fillan is first mentioned in a Papal Bull of 1178, but it is believed to have been built much earlier in that century. So it has stood here for more than 800 years. A long life, then, has this church of St Fillan enjoyed. And for nearly seven centuries it was used continuously.

It is a stirring experience indeed, as one stands in the shadow of its simple lovely arches, to think back along the centuries of history to the birth of this church. Five hundred years old are these stones, but before the arches were built - centuries before - the ground on which we stand was sacred ground, and we who stand on it today cannot but think of the worshippers who first knelt upon it. Thinking of them, our minds leap the whole span of Scotland's history. When those first worshippers spoke of their king they were speaking of Scotland's first David at the very dawn of Scotland's nationhood, and following those first worshippers come seven centuries of others, the church doors opening to receive them every Sunday for 700 years - right through the dark days of Edward's invasions and the stirring days of Wallace and Bruce, through the lives of the Jameses and through the bitterness of Flodden, through the Reformation and the Wars of the Bishops and of Cromwell, through the Restoration and the Union and the '15 and the '45.

Seven hundred years of constant worship. The first worshippers were talking of King David and of the Norse rulers of the Western Isles: the last of that seven - centuries - long procession were talking of a steam engine invented by James Watt and a canal being cut from Forth to Clyde.

Bruce's Window

The last in that long history of worship passed through the church in 1796. It fell into ruin. Its roof went, grass and weeds crept through it, ivy crawled over the pillars. Then, in 1926, it was rebuilt and re-dedicated. It is an outstanding example of devoted and sympathetic restoration - and as such is a perpetual memorial to the minister responsible, the Reverend Robert Johnstone, and those who assisted him in bringing the ivy-covered ruins of the ancient church to life and making of them one of the gems of Scottish church-building. The interior is of striking antique simplicity, of arched stone and powerful masonry. The glass, although modern, portrays with a gentle almost mediaeval fragility scenes from the church's eight centuries of life.

There are many relics of that long life. Most striking of them is the leper window, through which lepers, standing outside the church, could listen to the service and join in the worship. At this window, it is claimed, Robert the Bruce worshipped after Bannockburn. The window is now closed with a slab known as the Pilgrim's Stone. This slab must have stood on the road along which hundreds of pilgrims flocked some 500 years ago to be cured of diseases of the eye at the Holy Well of Aberdour. Where the "Old Manse" now stands on the Burntisland road stood a hospital built by the first Earl of Morton for the shelter of these pilgrims, and one of the windows of the church depicts a pilgrim being welcomed by a Franciscan sister. Another of the windows shows St Columba landing at Inchcolm.

In the chancel - where the arch shows the marks of the rood screen - an windows are all parts of the original church. And when we leave the church we come striding swiftly indeed through the centuries. There, hanging on the wall, is a reminder of quite recent times - the signatures of those men of Aberdour who recruited themselves into a local force to resist invasion. These were the Defence Force of 1798: the feared invader was Napoleon.

"Mortimers' Deep"

The church of St Fillan had stood there on the banks of the Firth for a mere 200 years when the building began on the banks of the Dour Burn of a keep, the ruins of which are at the west of Aberdour Castle near the church. Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, and gallant nephew of Robert the Bruce, is believed to have built the keep. The lands of Aberdour were once held by the Mortimer family, and that name is preserved in Aberdour by the fishermen's name of "Mortimer's Deep" for that stretch of water lying between the mainland and the island of Inchcolm. It owes that name to a drear legend.

Alan de Mortimer had granted half his lands to the abbey of Inchcolm in return for promise of burial in the abbey church. But this solemn bargain was not kept. The old chronicle tells that: "carrying his corpse in a coffin of lead by barge in the night-time, some wicked monks did throw the same in a great deep betwixt the land and the monastery, which to this day, by neighbouring fishermen and salters, is called Mortimer's Deep".

The name of Bruce comes again into our story of Aberdour. Early in the 14th century David II confirmed the charter of the lands of Aberdour to the Douglas family, and it is believed that the Douglas receiving them must have been that "good Sir James" to whom had been entrusted the sacred duty of carrying to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem the heart of Robert the Bruce.

A later Douglas, Regent Morton, the fourth Earl, was the first to build an addition to the original keep. He built what is now the central portion of the castle shortly before he was put to death in 1581. The legend that the Regent had secreted some of his wealth in the well in the courtyard was revived last century when the well was cleaned out, but nothing of value was found. William, eighth Earl of Morton, added to the castle in the 17th century, and the initials carved with the date 1632 on the doorway of the wall leading to the " church are those of the eighth Earl and his Countess, Lady Anne Keith.

Just outside the town, on the main road westward, we see the massive east gates of Donibristle. The great house of Donibristle, seat of the Earls of Moray, has been an ill-fated mansion. It was burned down three times; in the third fire, in 1858, many historic portraits were lost.



Dalgetty's Ancient Kirk

There is a tradition that the Romans used Aberdour as a port. So sheltered a spot it is that there is little reason to doubt the story. Today it is a pleasant and picturesque harbour and a popular holiday resort. The town is so protected from the winds by the high hills around it that one stretch of the beach is locally referred to as the "Aberdour Riviera", and certainly the encircling headlands give this part of the coast a southern character quite unique in Fife.

Along the coast amid the surrounding hills are many places and buildings famous for their legends, history and beauty. One of them is the ancient church of Dalgetty, lying romantically at the water's edge at the end of the road from the new Dalgetty church. This church, like that of St Fillan, was built by the monks of Inchcolm, and is an interesting combination of church and priest's'lodgings. In the room at the west end of the church the Covenanting minister, Andrew Donaldson, was allowed to continue residence after the Restoration. There he stayed as guest of his Episcopal successor and was ministered to by his parishioners until he again became minister of Dalgetty.

On the brow of Mains Brae, where the road climbs over to Burntisland and where opens out a magnificent view of the Forth, is Humbie Farm, in which Carlyle lived while writing Frederick the Great. From the hill here we can look down upon the cluster of Aberdour at the edge of the Firth and see the whole stretch of the ancient parish, its hills and parkland and woods,the islands of Inchcolm and lnchkeith, and we can, if we wish, try to determine just where in that noble stretch of water the good Sir Patrick lies.

The Bonny Earl

On the seashore below the ancient castle of Donibristle the young Earl of Moray - the Bonny Earl - was slain. He was a handsome youth. And vain of his good looks. Even as he died he taunted his slayer with spoiling a fairer face than his own. The chroniclers of the day described him as "the lustiest youth", and "a comelie personage, strong of body".

He was a braw gallant
And he rid at the ring,
And the bonny Earl o' Moray,
Oh, he might hae been a king.

He was a braw gallant,
And he played at the gluve,
And the bonny Earl o' Moray,
Oh, he was the Queen's luve.

Yes, the ballad-mongers of the day who sang his beauty linked his name with that of King James's Queen. She thought him handsome, and in her husband's hearing she recklessly praised him " with too many epithets, as a proper and gallant man". That, and the fact that his name was dangerously linked with those of the King's known enemies, were enough to condemn him, and when, on 7th February, 1592, the Earl of Huntly left Holyrood on pretence of going to a horse-race at Leith, he actually was on his way to Donibristle and carried a mandate for Moray's arrest. Passage of all boats but Huntly's was stopped on the Queen's Ferry, and, with a posse of forty men, he arrived at Donibristle. Moray barred the door, but Huntly's men set fire to the castle, and Moray did not know "whether to come out and be slain, or remain and be burnt". His friend Dunbar went out first, hoping to be mistaken for Moray and allow him to escape in the confusion. And the ruse worked. Dunbar was attacked and died, but Moray escaped to the shore. Tradition has it that he escaped down a subterranean passage. Then he was discovered by a tragically ludicrous accident. A silken string on his hood had caught fire; the flame was seen and betrayed his where-abouts. Gordon of Buckie, one of Huntly's followers, struck him down and then forced Huntly to deliver the death blow with his dagger.

For this deed the King punished Huntly only lightly, and when, two days after the murder, the Earl's mother, Lady Doune, brought the corpses of her son and Dunbar to Holyrood to present them to the King, James went out hunting.

Half owe, half owre to Aberdour
'Tis fifty fathoms deep,
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.

Aberdour Castle & Mary, Queen of Scots

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