Crathes - from crannog to castle

May 2002

by John Doran

James Burnett was never told what would be expected of him when his turn came to safeguard his family’s rich heritage as Laird of Leys, not in so many words. His grandfather, Major General Sir James Burnett of Leys, had never seen the need to lecture the lad about such responsibilities; he simply watched him grow into them. Young James finally faced the daunting task in 1953, when his grandfather died.

“When you live in a property from the age of nothing,” he says, “you gradually become aware of your inheritance and your future.”

The certainty of that future began at the age of three, when his uncle, Roger, was killed in action during World War II. Fortuitously, during the year before his death, Sir James Burnett relieved the family of the onerous task of maintaining the family home, Crathes Castle. The elegant l-shaped tower house, high in the woods above the River Dee, might be a ‘pearl of great price among the national jewels’, but its upkeep was beyond the family’s means. He arranged for its transfer, together with a sizeable parcel of land, to the National Trust for Scotland, with the proviso that the family could continue to live there.

“This must have been the most significant event in our Burnett family history since the day of the original grant of land from King Robert the Bruce in 1323,” James Burnett suggests in Crannog to Castle, a recently-published family history.

ELEGANT TOWER HOUSE: A pearl beyond price, high in the woods above the Dee

By all accounts Robert the Bruce was ferociously unforgiving of those who stood against him; generous to those who were loyal to his cause. The good, loyal citizens of Aberdeen benefited from generous gifts of land and money, some of which is still to be seen – and quarrelled over – today. William de Irvine received the castle and lands of Drum; Alexander Burnard, the lands of Leys.

Some records suggest that de Burnard’s prize came from the Comyns and from the Wauchope family. The family had held the lands under charters from Alexander I and Alexander II, but that meant nothing when they threw in their lot with Edward I, the Hammer of the Scots.

Unlike most of the scions of Anglo-Norman families who had thrown in their lot with Robert Bruce, De Burnard is said by some to have come from Anglo-Saxon stock; noble stewards of rich lands at Ardsley, in Bedfordshire.

The Burnards arrived in Scotland at the invitation of David Canmore, the Normanised son of Malcolm, on his accession to the Scottish throne. There is no record of Roger de Burnhard / Burnard of Melrose following successive kings on bloody forays across the border. But when Edward I sought to extend English feudal overlordship into Scotland, they stood ready to oppose him.

Alexander de Burnard became an able and valued supporter, and when independence was won, the Bruce rewarded him with the estate of Banchory. The gift also included parts of the Royal Forest of Drum.

It was at this time that de Burnhard received the beautiful Horn of Leys that still has pride of place in the castle today. The symbol was added to the holly leaves that formed the main charge on the family’s coat of arms. The banner was first hoisted over an insalubrious residence on or near the bog-bound crannog of Leys, to which the family might retire in time of danger.

In 1488 the laird’s son, Alexander, came out in support of the unpopular James III in his struggle against rebellious southern magnates and earned himself a charter that united all his lands into a free barony.

It was one of Alexander’s younger sons, Canon Duncan Burnett of St Machar Cathedral, Aberdeen, who set the seal to the family’s wealth and prosperity by securing the tenancy of church lands, and engineering a propitious marriage for his nephew.

“One of the wealthiest [members of the Cathedral Chapter] was Robert Hamilton, Prebendary of Kincardine, and related to the most powerful family in Scotland during the childhood of Queen Mary,” says Schomberg Scott. “As he – his Holy Orders notwithstanding – had an only daughter who was heiress to all his earthly treasures… what more natural than a match with his colleague’s nephew?”

Cardinal David Beaton, the notoriously immoral and conniving Archbishop of St Andrews, subsequently made over still more Church lands to the daughter of his well-connected Hamilton friend.

Begun in 1553, the building was unaccountably slow; four lairds would come and go before it was finished.

The skill and effort poured into the building by the master masons George and John Bell was well rewarded. Ian Bryce expressed belief that, “Crathes Castle ranks with Fyvie Castle, Castle Fraser and Craigievar Castle as one of the late 16th and early 17th century group which enrich the north-east of Scotland and are of national importance.”

Time has etched changes upon Crathes and its policies, but each has been absorbed as easily as rain and sunlight. But echoes of past times whisper to all but the most cynical visitors as

they move along the sylvan, sun-dappled drive, past the still, dark lake that is home to shy otters and quick-eyed herons.

The elegant Jacobean tower-house suddenly appears, first glimpsed through serried ranks of trees then towering over the tall red wall that borders nationally-acknowledged gardens. Students of architecture find plenty to enjoy in study of the slender l-shaped structure with its deliberately sloping walls and exuberant upper stories.

From the hallway of the Queen Anne wing that was restored after a fire in 1966, one comes to the turnpike staircase with its trip stairs to inconvenience mischievous visitors with plans to rush upstairs rooms.

The High Hall, on the first floor, is the most important room in the house. Here the laird and his family lived. The room was once crowned with a painted ceiling, but Sir James Burnett, the 13th Baronet, stripped the plaster from the walls and ceiling.

However, there is much to see, from the huge, arched ceiling with its crested bosses to the portraits by the Aberdeen painter George Jamesone and others.

Among them is one of the canny first Baronet, Thomas. It was he who, when faced with the Marquess of Montrose’s Covenanters, calmly offered supper and a well-stuffed purse. The invitation to dine was accepted but the purse refused and the following morning Montrose and his marauders went on their way to sack Aberdeen.

Gilbert Burnett, Bishop of Salisbury, is also there. He was one of the most brilliant members of the family, going to Marischal College, Aberdeen, at 10 to study law.

By far the most intriguing are two small carved heads on the doors of an oak cupboard. Tradition says they are portraits of Alexander Burnett and his wife Katherine Gordon of Lesmoir, the first occupants of the castle.

Pride of place, above the 16th century Italian stone chimneypiece, is given to the Horn of Leys, and in an alcove high above hang two equally intriguing items: a shirt of chain mail and headwear of eastern type.

The pots in the landing recess of the stairs leading up to the next floor came from the excavation of the original Burnett stronghold on the crannog of Leys.

The Laird’s Room has a 19th-century fourpost bed with a bedspread made by Sir James’s second wife, Lauderdale Ramsay, Lady Burnett.

The painted ceilings at Crathes are among the North-east’s richest treasures. A change of fashion caused the paintings to be covered over with lathe and plaster, possibly as part of the 3rd Baronet’s ‘modernisation’. In 1876, when the 11th Baronet returned from America after making his fortune, he had the plaster and boards removed to reveal the painted ceilings, as bright as when they were first created. Sadly, the wall paintings could not be saved, but what remains stuns the eye and fires the imagination.

First is the Room of the Nine Nobles. It represents characters from the Ancient World, the Old Testament and medieval times. Among the furnishings are two chairs bearing the initials of Alexander Burnett and his wife Katherine Gordon, fine examples of the Aberdeen School of Woodcarving that flourished from the mid-16th century.

The Green Lady’s Room was named for the legendary ghost of Crathes. The popular theory, that the ghost is that of a young woman and her child, was borne out by the discovery of a child’s skeleton buried under a hearthstone in the room.

The Long Gallery, which stretches the width of the castle’s top floor, is unique in Scotland. Its panelled ceiling is the only one of its kind to survive, apart from the three royal palaces. The six shields down the centre belong to the first Baronet; the King of Scotland, his overlord, and other family members and friends.

The Laird’s Bedroom is without its painted ceiling, but there are items of interest. Not least is the magnificent fourpost bed, made anew when Alexander Burnett and Katherine Gordon moved into the house.

An unusual carved panel, above the fireplace, substantiates the claim that some of Scotland’s finest woodcarvers were to be found working in and around Aberdeen.

The Nine Muses and Seven Virtues on the ceiling of the Muses Room are thought to have been intended as an inspiration for the first chatelaine. The room now houses a square piano built by John Broadbent and a harp made by Erard.

At the bottom of the stairs, in the Stone Hall, is a small, varied collection of weapons including a great two-handed sword and a variety of muskets and pistols.

On the staircase are portraits of Major-General Sir James Burnett, the 13th Baronet and 25th Laird of Leys, and his wife, Sybil. As a career soldier, Sir James was used to making difficult decisions. But few can have been more difficult than that relating to the future of the ancient family home into which he had his wife had poured much love.

Nowhere is that love so clearly evidenced than in the gardens. Together, they developed eight individual gardens within the greater walled garden, to create one of Scotland’s horticultural treasures.

“It’s a fascinating, complex garden,” says Calum Pirnie, the head gardener. “There are eight main periods of development within the gardens over the past 300 years. It’s got terrific structure in wintertime, which most people don’t ever see, and then in summer it’s got an incredible blend of intense colours which overlays the structure.

“Obviously there was a garden of some form here in the 1600s,” says the gardener, “but we don’t know much about it. Certainly by the 1700s we start to get some information. It was around that time that the big tree shelterbelts were planted in the policies. At the same time the yew trees were introduced, in the granite outcrops and in the topiaries in the garden.”

The ring-counting of one of the ‘egg and eggcup’ topiaries suggested it was 235 years, but, adds Pirnie, “there are many years they don’t actually grow and put on an increment ring, so we know there’s a good chance they’re hitting towards 300 years old.”

It was in 1951 that Sir James and Lady Sybil arrived at the sadly unavoidable decision that they could not continue to live in the castle. Their two sons were dead and the cost of maintenance was prohibitive. The decision was made to donate the historic house to the National Trust for Scotland.

“The gift was probably fortuitous,” says James Burnett, who made the castle his family home until a fire destroyed one wing and badly damaged another in 1966.

“These houses are a liability; we aren’t a rich family; we couldn’t afford to continue operating it and living in it in the way we used to. I think we were an intrusion into the public’s and the trust’s privacy in the castle, so it’s a mutually agreeable separation, but we still like to think it is our home.”

When he accepted Sir James Burnett’s gift of the castle in 1952, Lord Wemyss, the chairman of the National Trust for Scotland emphasised: “Please let there be no sadness that it no longer belongs to the Burnetts of Leys: it is only in the valuation roll and sundry legal documents that their ownership has ceased.

“In name and fame, in reputation and substance, it still remains, and may it ever remain, their place, and they remain its lairds.”

After training as a journalist, John Doran worked in the feature film industry, latterly as a freelance film producer /director. His long-running television programme, The Electric Theatre Show, brought him to Aberdeen.

This is an article from the May 2002 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.