Darnaway Castle, Medieval castle in Moray, Scotland.
Darnaway Castle is a category A listed castle in Moray, Scotland, presenting a symmetrical front with crenellations and corner turrets rebuilt in the early 19th century. At its core sits a large medieval hall from an earlier structure, which remains the oldest surviving part of the building.
The original castle was built in the Middle Ages by Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, and served for centuries as a seat of Scottish nobility. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the ninth Earl of Moray commissioned a near-complete rebuild of the structure in a fashionable Gothic Revival style.
The medieval hall inside the castle contains one of only two surviving hammerbeam roofs in Scotland, built in the 15th century by skilled carpenters. This roof style was a mark of prestige, and its survival makes the hall a rare example of late medieval craftsmanship in the country.
The castle is privately owned and not open to visitors, so access to the interior is not possible. The surrounding estate grounds and woodland paths offer a way to see the exterior of the building from a distance.
Between 1767 and 1781, around eight million pine trees were planted across the estate under the direction of the ninth Earl, reshaping the landscape on a large scale. This effort is considered one of the most extensive private tree-planting campaigns carried out in Scotland during that period.
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