Scotland · Still standing
Beaufort Castle
Beaufort Castle (Castle Dounie) is a late-19th-century baronial mansion on the right bank of the River Beauly near Beauly in Inverness-shire, built in 1880 incorporating older work. It is the traditional seat of the Lords Lovat and stands beside the remains of the medieval Dounie/Downie castle. The house and its grounds are a listed historic property in Scotland.
Its prime
1880
Today
Still standing
As it stood in 1880
What Beaufort Castle looked like in its prime.
A late‑Victorian Scottish baronial mansion of warm red/brown sandstone with a tall rectangular entrance tower fronting the drive, an attached round tower with a conical roof on the right, and crenellated parapets across the roofline. The entrance is reached through wrought‑iron gates and features a carved stone doorway set into a flat façaded tower with small regularly spaced sash windows. The house sits beside mature trees on the right bank of the River Beauly and was complete and habitable at its prime.
Its story
The story of Beaufort Castle.
Castle Dounie, from the Bysets to Cromwell
The earliest notice of the site falls in the reign of Alexander I, between 1106 and 1124, and it records a siege. That first castle, known as Downie or Dounie, was built by the Byset family; it passed to the Fentons in the late 13th century and later to the Frasers, and English forces besieged it in 1303. In the 1650s it was attacked and burned by Cromwell's forces during their invasion of Scotland.
The Fox, the Forty-Five and Cumberland's Demolition
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, known as 'The Fox', inherited the Fraser estates in 1699 and went deep into the Jacobite cause, which aimed to restore the deposed House of Stuart. Exiled to France, he joined James Stuart, the Old Pretender, converted to Catholicism and carried messages north to recruit Scottish nobles — dealings that cost him ten years in a French prison. He returned in 1714 and apparently renounced the cause in exchange for possession of his estates.
In the 1740s he commissioned William Adam to design a new house at Dounie. It was Adam's last work and it got no further than stonework delivered to the site: the Rising of 1745 intervened, Lovat changed allegiance once more for the Jacobites, and after the Battle of Culloden he was captured and executed. Dounie Castle was razed by the Duke of Cumberland and the estate declared forfeit. A single wall of it still stands beside the later house, 11 metres long and 1.5 metres high, carrying a plaque that calls it "the ruin of Castle Downie, the ancient stronghold of the Frasers of Lovat, built c. 1400, and destroyed by Cumberland after the battle of Culloden".
The Forfeited Estate and the Mansion of 1880
From 1746 the estate was run by the Forfeited Estates Commissioners, appointed by Parliament to dispose of confiscated property, and a small house was put up on the site of the demolished castle for the estate factor. In 1774 the estate was returned to Lovat's son Simon Fraser, who had raised and commanded the 78th Fraser Highlanders for the British Army; proposals for a new house in 1777 were never executed. Thomas Fraser of Strichen inherited in 1815 and was reinstated to the Lordship of Lovat in 1854; in 1839 he commissioned William Burn to extend that house.
His son Simon Fraser, 13th Lord Lovat, built the present Beaufort Castle in 1880 to designs by James Maitland Wardrop, taking part of the 18th-century house into the new work. The traditional seat of the Lords Lovat, chiefs of Clan Fraser of Lovat, it was sold in 1994 by the 15th Lord Lovat to the Stagecoach director Ann Gloag to meet inheritance taxes, the Master of Lovat having accumulated debts estimated at £7m.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1880.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Beaufort Castle, including 1 interior: private roman catholic chapel (interior). Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Beaufort Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1880, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate this castle →Castle Siege
Play Castle Siege at Beaufort Castle.
A strategy game played on Beaufort Castle’s real ground plan: the same surveyed walls shown in the archive below. Post your finite garrison on the battlements between assaults, then hold out as rams, siege towers, trebuchets and sappers arrive in ever-worse waves.
Sign in free to see the garrison muster. One castle costs 150 Clan Coins and is yours forever.
Sign in to take command →Whose castle
Clans who held Beaufort Castle.
The families that held Beaufort Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Byset
Built the original castle on the site.
Seat of the Frasers of Lovat, Dounie Castle, built c. 1400, was razed after Culloden; the present house was built for the 13th Lord Lovat in 1880 and sold in 1994.
