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

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire (; ) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Aberdeenshire (historic), Aberdeenshire, which had substantial ...

, Scotland. 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) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

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, and a turnpike 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 the 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 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 monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

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 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