A History of the Architectural Design of Castle Fraser, Aberdeen

As an atmospheric baronial palace that could day of the month back to the 15th degree centigrade, Castle Fraser was one epoch the place of the Fraser househ gray-headed. The grace of Castle Fraser remains oerpowering afterward well-nigh 300 old ages, to the people who approach it for the first clip. Visitors to the realm argon confronted with one of the nearly dramatic of the Castles of Mar , which is the largest and most luxuriant Scots palace. The palace was make on the Z-plan design and stands in 140 hectares of beautiful res publica area. quest the forest trails, visitants could venture through the palace and up to the unit of ammunition tower, with its birds-eye positions of the tends and terra firma beyond, they have a glance of the life in the medieval to the Victorian period. The chief palace itself was completed around 1636, on that point were several eighteenth- and nineteenth-century alterations.The name of Fraser initiated in Anjou in France.The history of Castle Fraser could be traced to the center of 14th century, the clip when James II gave the lands around Muchall and Stoneywood to doubting Thomas Fraser as a gift. At the get downing Castle Fraser bore-hole the name of Muchall-in-Mar ( as the castles recoiler name until 1695 ) .The edifice work of Castle Fraser was completed amidst 1575 and 1635. In the 1570s, Michael Fraser decided to spend a penny a larger house for his household, with the name of Michael s Tower , only the palace remained under building at his decease in the goal of the 1580s. on that pointfore, his inheritor, Andrew Fraser completed the palace after his decease, to the visual aspect that it has now. After that at that place have been some little alterations in the early 19th century and a new expansive stairway in Victorian clock ( which was demolished after the Second World war ) .In the year of 1976, the palace itself and land of 26 estates were gifted to the National put for Scotland. At that clip, Major and Mrs Smiley were the last proprietors.Castle Fraser counterbalance amidst 120 hectares of beautiful gardens and undecided forest, un slight 16 stat mis from Aberdeen. The design of Castle Fraser s landscape is in general done by Thomas White in 1794. Naturally, it is environ by the grassland with higher degree. The scope of degree difference within the estate betwixt highest and lo western United States is 30 metres about. However, sing the country, it is instead smooth and level comparatively.The estate has two easy followed trails go throughing through a mixture of parkland, farming area and forest, with the opening positions of Bennachie. The ancient system of sha red ink agriculture on exposed Fieldss was replaced by a more profit-driven, coarsely improved estate, together with snazzy leisure countries and an attractive parkland scene.Castle Fraser. as a well-preserved five-storey tower edifice, was chiefly built from local granite. It a Z-shaped archite cture with a rectangular chief edifice and two towers at diagonally fence corners of it, as an ordinary elbow room of Scots palace at that clip. It is surrounded by over 300 estates of unfastened wood and farm, with a oddly designed hem ined garden. It is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and is unfastened to tourers during the and is unfastened to tourers in the summer. It is a proper topographic point for nuptialss and corporate events as good.Aberdeenshire finest master-masons made a huge part to an about perfect Z-plan massing of blocks unite with an antic upperworks as amplification Since the clip is near to the extremum of conversion Aberdeenshire, the palace was furnished with a prodigious asymmetrical sleeping agency stack of six floors which yet trys to do a balance of the whole. presently environing the palace, provided with a greater extent to the West than the East is an marches known as the Cherry Yard, presumptively planted with cherry trees, and beyo nd it to the West is a larger enclosure, the Ducat Yard. And the Cherry Yard is to the West, as express in the map of Policies in 1780.The landscape straightaway of Castle Fraser was found in the eighteenth and early 19th centuries. Former estate programs press out that the gardens built following to the palace in typical Scots chateau manner, with the doocot ( dovercote ) and red paces to the West and a big, apparent hedged, garden to the E. With its gramd entryway to the palace, the spacious liberty chit, an bridle-path of lacewood trees acted as a way and welcome to the courtyard. However, things were different during the eighteenth and early 19th centuries, when the centuries-old community system of joint agriculture on unfastened Fieldss was one time replaced by a profit-driven, agriculturally improved estate. It is the knowing landscape of this period today.Many of these alterations were carried out by Elyza Fraser, the Laird of Castle Fraser between 1792 and 1814, carried out. She invited a pupil of the celebrated English landscape interior architect Capability Brown, Thomas White, to plan those betterments to the landscape. It was unusual at the clip for a adult female to play such an active and big(p) draw in estate direction. The s toweringss were built ( to an bing design by John Paterson ) a snaky lake, decorated with two swans and a rowing boat, was dug to the southeastern United States of the palace and the walled garden was built in 1795.T present is a tall cistern and hearthouse of a mechanical H2O pump on the Alton Brae. And it had an of present moment function of supplying a H2O supply to the palace and estate. It was installed in the early 1900s, and powered by a modern electrical pump now.There is a natural spring here that served as dispense of Miss Bristows landscaping strategy. It is a re-used triangular lean from above a dormer window, about surely from the palace, and day of the months from the 1630s. The carven i nitials -LAF- fundament for Lord Andrew Fraser. The Moses Well House is more cryptic. The beautiful rock panels form portion of one big panel picturing the Old will prophesier Moses, surrounded by scenes from his life. They were carved in the mid-1600s, perchance in the Netherlands, and likely for an of import church. The reply of how or when they came to Castle Fraser is yet under outlook.There are tonss of workss in Miss Bristow s Wood be human faces merely trees. Wildflowers can be seen throughout Miss Bristows Wood. Small dust coat flowers of wood oxalis, wood windflowers and wild hyacinths appear in spring, with tall steeples of digitaliss and pray Rhododendron maxima willowherb emerging in the summer.Inside the wood stands the memorial for Mary Bristow, which was set by Elyza Fraser The lettering on it is Farewell Alas how much less is the society of others than the memory of thee.There are two chief trails to learn straightly to the palace. One is in the North and the oth er is in the West. The earliest estate map to demo the lay-out of the policies could be dated back every daub early as 1788, and likely it keeps a record of an agreement from the the after-hours 17th century. The map shows that the Castle stands at the junction of four great paths of lacewoods. The chief ocular axis is the avenue to the North the Broad lane which is the widest 1 as the name suggests, but the most of import unveiling must hold been from the West Avenue, since it led to the Aberdeen route at BroomdykeIt is the Broad Walk of lacewoods that acts as an chief attack to the palace itself. The Broad Walk through Alton Brae one time connected the palace with the old Aberdeen. The trees here were planted more than 200 old ages ago.A squad of oxen one time pulled a large and heavy Big Dipper, and so those long additive ridges in the Alton Brea came into being as remains of mediaeval cultivation rigs. Cereals were grown on top of them.The Alton Brea trail begins in the Fieldss and windbreaks with agricultural usage, and so passes the Alton Brae forests, inside(a) which a big scope of birds exist, treecreepers, longtailed breasts and coal breasts and so on. And the finish of the Alton Brea trail isthe flight Pond. This flight pool is non a outstanding topographic point for wildlife, since it was created at start to pull animate beings for hiting. In the late 17th century, this country around this beautiful pool was change integrity into topographic points for the laird to feed their animals and so direct them to the market. This mosaic of home yard at Castle Fraser encourages a big scope of species to come.All in all, The estates design achieves practical functionality every bit good as astonishing views.Mary Bristow was the interior decorator of this forest, known as Miss Bristows Wood, as a pleasance land practiced of weaving waies, pleasant clearings and distant positions. Elyza Fraser and Mary Bristow developed these forests from agricultura l land. They worn-out(a) more than ?9,600 ( over ?500,000 today ) between 1797 and 1800 to carry through this task.Miss Bristows Trail ( 1.25 stat mis ) is named after Mary Bristow. The trail besides passes interesting archeologic characteristics including the Moses Well.Merely to the North of Castle Fraser, there is a traditional walled garden of trees, bushs and herbaceous plantings, a medicative and culinary limitation line and organically adult fruit and veggies. The rectangular walled garden contains 17th-century sun operate with complex lectern dial in freestone.The garden depicted on the 1788/9 program is likely to hold been first designed and laid out shortly after the east wing of the palace was completed in 1633/4 ( Fraser 2010 ) and by the clip it was dismantled in 1796 the garden had been in being for over 160 old ages. The Walled Garden on this site was built in this location to replace the walled enclosures to the E and South of the Castle, as expressed in the 1788 map. It is possible that there has been alterations after that, non merely the replacing and remotion of workss and trees, but besides likely alterations in the building of the garden, such as the waies and wallsThe manner that Walled Garden expressions now could dates from about 1977-78, and it is designed by Eric Robson, the former NTS taper of Gardens.The walled garden provided the palace with fruit, veggies and flowers, and contained a vineyard and two Prunus persica houses. The west portion of the garden is for veggies. The east portion is of assorted boundary lines and lawn. both of them are separated by violet beech hedges from the cardinal of the garden. An avenue of tree rows stand on the axis of the garden. A pump has been installed inside the garden. One little greenhouse remains on the north wall with the bothy edifice on the exterior of the wall. This is portion 2-storey, portion 1-storey, in coarse-textured squared granite blocks with some snecking in usage as public lavatories and a nurseryman s room.Deserving to advert that in 1959, the south boundary line of the garden replied to one of the design of James Russell in Sunningdale Nurseries. The are assorted bushs and herbaceous workss, with some roses and lilies. By 1978 most of the original workss died. so the boundary line was replanted and redesigned by Eric Robson.The north wall was heated. However, there is lone(prenominal) portion of this system remains low in the wall of the brick arches. It was the ovens seam to plug the air through flukes inside the walls. They have to do a batch of work to return the gardens to what they used to be in eighteenth century. The gardens besides feature the wood Secrets escapade resort area and trails. devil manner marked walks offer brilliant positions of the local hills.Since 1976, the National Trust for Scotland has farther developed the gardens. The chief regeneration work is between 2003 and 2005. The Woodland Secrets play country was specially designed for amuze the kids.The site known today as the Castle Frazer rock circle is situated about 800 m to the Westof the palace in the parish of Cluny. The circle is about 20.4m of diameter and it comprises the in sight remains of the rock circle seven independent standing rocks, in which two of which have now fallen down.The circle one time was consisted of 11 rocks, merely nine remains now. The Altar ( the recumbent slab ) measures 6 9 in length and is 4 6 in tallness. The rock at its East terminal is 6 7 high and 4 6 broad at the base. About 200 gaits due easts are two rocks a few gaits distant from each other and about 7 high .The circle is to some extent guerrilla in form. The Altarstone is about due south from the Centre. There is a little homocentric circle, 13 pess in diameter, within the larger one, but merely specify at the North and South sides, as shewn in the ground-plan, by rocks drop down in the land down to the sub-soil and demoing themselves a few inches above land. They raise up each other, and demo by and large a level side turned to the Centre of the circle.The whole country of the Circle was found to be paved closely and steadfastly with little bowlders, lying about 6 inches below the surface.