Gight is the name of an estate in the parish of Fyvie in the Formartine area of

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially different boundaries. The Aberdeenshire Council area inclu ...

, Scotland, United Kingdom. It is best known as the location of the 16th-century Gight (or Formartine) Castle, ancestral home of

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...

Gight Castle

Gight Castle is about miles east of Fyvie, just north of the River Ythan, and mile south of Cottown.Coventry, Martin (1997) ''The Castles of Scotland''. Goblinshead. p.188 The castle was built to an L-shaped plan, probably in the 1570s by George Gordon, the second laird. Ranges of outbuildings were built later. The tower has a vaulted

basement A basement or cellar is one or more Storey, floors of a building that are completely or partly below the storey, ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, ...

, and a

turnpike Turnpike often refers to: * A type of gate, another word for a turnstile * In the United States, a toll road Turnpike may also refer to: Roads United Kingdom * A turnpike road, a principal road maintained by a turnpike trust, a body with powe ...

stair at the end of a long passage. There was a

hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...

on the first floor. George Gordon had no children, and the property passed to his brother, James Gordon of Cairnbannoch and Gight. His son Alexander married Agnes Beaton, daughter of David Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews. Alexander was killed at Dundee in 1579, and his daughter Elizabeth married George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar in 1590. It was later occupied by Catherine Gordon Byron, the mother of Lord Byron, but she sold it in 1787 to

George Gordon, 3rd Earl of Aberdeen George Gordon, 3rd Earl of Aberdeen (19 June 1722 – 13 August 1801), styled Lord Haddo until 1745, was a Scottish peer. He sat in the House of Lords as a Scottish Representative Peer from 1747 to 1761, and from 1774 to 1790. He was against Willi ...

to pay off her debts. It was then occupied by the Earl's son, George Gordon, Lord Haddo, until the latter's early death in 1791, since when it has been uninhabited. It was designated a scheduled ancient monument in 1965. The Gight Woods is a protected natural forest.

Folklore

It is said that the ruins are haunted by a piper who disappeared while exploring an underground passageway. There is a local legend that Gight Castle was cursed by Scottish prophet

Thomas the Rhymer Sir Thomas de Ercildoun, better remembered as Thomas the Rhymer (fl. c. 1220 – 1298), also known as Thomas Learmont or True Thomas, was a Scottish laird and reputed prophet from Earlston (then called "Erceldoune") in the Borders. Thomas ...

who proclaimed ''“At Gight three men by sudden death shall dee, And after that the land shall lie in lea”.'' Almost 500 years later, three men were killed and the prophecy fulfilled. The nearby river below the ruins is said to contain a treasure hidden by the 7th Laird and guarded by the Devil.

References

{{authority control Villages in Aberdeenshire Castles in Aberdeenshire Scheduled Ancient Monuments in Aberdeenshire