Gight Castle (Formantine Castle)

Gight Castle, Aberdeenshire
Photo © Peter Ward, March 2002

Home of Lord Byron's mother, Catherine Gordon.

Gight is the name of an estate in the parish of Fyvie in the Formartine area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom. It is best known as the location of the historic Gight Castle, ancestral home of Lord Byron. The Gight Woods are presently a protected natural forest.

GIGHT, OR FORMANTINE CASTLE, Aberdeenshire.

This castle, now a shapeless ruin, was formerly celebrated for its great strength, to which the thickness of its crumbling walls still bears witness. It occupies a strong and commanding site on the summit of the "Braes o' Gight," which rise precipitously from the river Ythan, about three miles from Fyvie. The estate became the property, in 1479, of William Gordon, third son of the second Earl of Huntly, and the castle is supposed to have been built by him. The House of Gight descended in his family till it belonged to Catherine Gordon, the mother of Lord Byron. It was purchased from her by Lord Aberdeen in 1787.

The plan of the ground floor is well preserved, and is somewhat remarkable. It is on the L plan, but the door enters in the centre of one limb, and has a long passage running right through the building to the staircase, which is in the centre of the back wall. The same arrangement may be observed at Craig Castle. From a bend in the passage a shot-hole commands the entrance door. In the vault of the lobby adjoining the door there is a small compartment of ribbed and groined vaulting, which is a feature peculiar to several castles in Aberdeenshire. The kitchen has the usual large fireplace, and a service window to the stair. The other apartments, which are vaulted, were bakehouse and cellars, one having the private stair down from the hall. The hall, which occupies the principal portion of the building on the first floor, was a spacious apai'tment, 37 feet by 21 feet. It is entered in a peculiar manner by a straight stair, through one of the window recesses, the stair to the cellar, which was also continued up to the upper floors, also entering from a similar door in the opposite side of the window recess. A small vaulted room is obtained between the hall and the private room, and the walls of the latter are riddled with wall chambers in the manner common in the fifteenth century.

From the thickness of the walls, and the number of wall chambers and other features, this castle evidently belongs to the fifteenth century, although probably it was remodelled at a later date. The remains of the tympanum of a dormer window still existing seem to point to this.

THE CASTELLATED AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF SCOTLAND BY DAVID MACGIBBON AND THOMAS ROSS, 1889