A SCOTS community are de-knight-ed after securing funding for renovation work on a nearby castle.
The community in Braemar, Aberdeenshire, are celebrating a major milestone as work gets underway to restore local Braemar Castle.
Braemar Castle has been a feature of the landscape for over 400 years, and since 2007 has been under community management – who are now heading an ambitious restoration project.
The “Raising the Standard” project will enable Braemar Community Limited to advance their goal of conserving the 17th century Castle as a visitor attraction.
But the plans will also create a community programme so that the Castle contributes to the future welfare of the whole region.
The community believes the £1.6m vision will create a prominent visitor attraction and deliver a bold, creative and far-reaching programme of community engagement and learning.
Now, following three years of community fundraising alongside support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic Environment Scotland, the programme of work can get underway.
Set in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park, the castle has a fairy tale aspect with battlemented towers and turrets, a star shaped curtain wall and a bottle-necked dungeon.
Built in 1628 by John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar, as his Highland hunting lodge, it was a target in the first Jacobite uprising in 1689, torched by the infamous “Black Colonel”, John Farquharson of Inverey.
Following the Battle of Culloden, the castle was used as a garrison for Hanoverian soldiers to suppress any lingering Jacobite support.
It has drawn visitors to the village since the early 1950s, and since the community took over, has worked with schools and community groups on-site.
Chair of Braemar Community Limited, Simon Blackett says:
“We are grateful to our funders for recognizing the importance of this project and for supporting us in making our vision for Braemar Castle a reality.
“We, as a community group, have been gearing up to this moment for over 14 years and are delighted that capital works can finally begin in 2022.
“Our vision for Braemar Castle is much more than simply repairing and rebuilding walls, although that is a very important element of the work.
“It’s about breaking down barriers and reaching out into the local community and further afield, with initiatives that can help everyone, including some of society’s most vulnerable.
“After the impact of the past two years and the issues of uncertainty and isolation, mental health and wellbeing have never been more important.
“This project will achieve a visually much improved castle with the harling repaired but it will also take on the expanded role of engaging even more people with heritage.”
In future, it is anticipated that the castle team will be welcoming greater numbers to Braemar for a more diverse programme as well as engaging more broadly with communities and groups across Aberdeenshire.
Fundraising continues to ensure that, on completion in 2023, the redeveloped Castle and its outreach activities have the greatest effect and impact across the north-east.
