Scotland · Still standing
Kinnairdy Castle
Kinnairdy Castle is a Scottish tower house comprising a tall multi-storey tower attached to a lower, extended domestic wing; the exterior is harled and whitewashed with visible areas of exposed rubble masonry. The building stands behind a broad gravel forecourt with a small lawn to one side and an outbuilding against the tower. The present structure reads as a lived-in country castle rather than a large fortified citadel.
Its prime
1680
Today
Still standing
As it stood in 1680
What Kinnairdy Castle looked like in its prime.
A tall rectangular stone tower with a crow-stepped gable rises from the left end of a lower two-storey domestic block; walls are harled and whitewashed on the front, with exposed grey rubble stone on the tower’s rear/side. Slate roofs with simple dormer windows punctuate the roofline of the lower wing. Ground in front is a broad gravel forecourt leading to a central doorway in the lower block, with a small grass lawn to the right and a low stone outbuilding abutting the tower to the left.
Its story
The story of Kinnairdy Castle.
Kinnairdy stands on land that belonged to the Innes family from the late 14th century; an earlier tower of about 1420 replaced a wooden motte and bailey. In the hall an oak-panelled aumbry carries the carved heads of Sir Alexander Innes and his wife Christian Dunbar with the date 1493 — Sir Alexander seems to have got into financial difficulties through his taste for Flanders panelling.
The Innes family sold the castle to Sir James Crichton of Frendraught in 1629. It came to the Reverend John Gregory in 1647, then passed to his brother David, a doctor claimed as constructor of the first barometer, before David's third son sold it to Thomas Donaldson, an Elgin merchant who restored and re-roofed the five-storey tower during the eighteenth century, transforming it into a country house.
The property returned to the Innes family in 1923, when they began a restoration; Thomas Innes of Learney, Lord Lyon King of Arms, owned the house after the Second World War and introduced some of its heraldic decoration. The L-plan tower — its original first-floor entrance once reached by a removable wooden bridge from the parapet wall — is a category A listed building.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1680.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Kinnairdy Castle — including the full exterior approach. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and walk through every one — more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Create History
Recreate Kinnairdy Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1680 — a photoreal walk that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate this castle →Whose castle
Clans who held Kinnairdy Castle.
The families that held Kinnairdy Castle for a decade or more across its history — follow a name to its clan.
Innes
Innes family land from the late 14th century until sold in 1629; the family returned to Kinnairdy in 1923.
Crichton
Sold to Sir James Crichton of Frendraught in 1629.
Gregory
Came to the Reverend John Gregory in 1647, passing to his brother David and then to David's son.
Donaldson
Bought by Thomas Donaldson, an Elgin merchant, who restored and re-roofed the castle in the eighteenth century.
