Dunbeath, you 'Dun' Good.

I couldn’t quite get enough of Dunbeath Castle.

From the initial emailed appointment, the long amazing first impression driveway with the overhanging leafless branches, the friendly welcome from the gardener, to the walled winter gardens, the warm and bright sun (surprisingly so as it had rained almost the whole 40 minute drive there) reflecting on the ocean and of course, the castle itself, built neatly on the cliffside of the North Sea in Northern Scotland. Somewhere beyond the eye can see will be Norway, Denmark and the North East Coast of Scotland.

Oh Scotland, your body is a wonderland.

This is by far the castle I have spent the most time admiring, and we didn’t even get to go inside. I can honestly say I am curious enough that if I were a cat, I’d have been killed by now. Isn’t that what they say? Curiosity killed the cat…

Dunbeath is a privately owned castle, so no appointments can be made to enter inside the castle. Which is fine by me. I have read enough fictional books involving witches and wizards, beasts and castles and seen enough Disney classics with princes and princesses riding off into the sunset towards their regal castles to be able to come up with something spectacular for the interior in my mind. On the brighter side, not being able to see the interior of the castle means I cannot be disappointed when I find out they do not actually have a nest of cute little clothed and singing mice stealing cheese from the 17th century kitchen or a room filled with bright red toad stools and merrily dancing fairies. How does your imagination work?

They are however more than happy to arrange appointments to view the surrounding gardens. And rightly so. Have you ever seen the classic 1993 film “The Secret Garden”? If you have then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when I tell you the beautiful gardens of Dunbeath may very well be that secret garden from the film. The magic and the potential, the shadows, the structure, the stone walls and the details are so similar to that in the film that I had to search it up on IMDB (really good source for movie and TV content, can recommend you download it if you’re a movie buff) to double check I was definitely not in the same secret garden. It is in fact not the garden from the film, but gee wizz it’s similar. Or at least I can see it will be in the Spring time.

Being the middle of winter and in the highlands of Scotland, the garden is not blooming. But that does not mean there is a lack of creativity and beauty. If you’re into flowers, herbs, basically anything involving green and mother nature, you can picture the details in your mind and imagine how it would look when it is in full blooming colour. The greenhouse houses foreign joys not usually known to Scotlands soils such as the Chinese Sacred Lily, the Japanese Iris and a funny looking type of “rose” known as Tree Aeonium. It’s colourful in there, it’s warmer than outside, it’s looked after lovingly (as is the rest of the garden), it smells exotic and it’s basically just really pretty and there’s nothing basic about it.

THEN, enter the “Secret Garden” world. From climbing wall vines to gazebos and ponds and fountains and ornaments and yes, garden lovers heaven. I am a garden lover. This was heaven to me. And though it’s winter time and the gardener advised there was not much to see, I could see it clearly. I had Alice in Wonderland and Peter Rabbit vibes going on and I could picture the rabbits and ducks and hedgehogs and all things cute and furry and happy and I could see it SO very clearly. There’s two gardens by the way, this was just the first. The gardener explained they were uprooting a lot of older plants and replanting them either elsewhere or renewing them for the newly refurbished garden they will have ready for when more visitors start arriving in the warmer holiday season. Typically starting around April/May and ending around September/October. The United Kingdom’s summer.

The second garden is a landscape of green grass, soft green grass that made me want to take my shoes off, run around and roll down the little hills. Something I did not do because, just a reminder in case you forgot, it’s winter and it’s really cold and having dry feet means I’m just that little bit warmer in the outside world. Anyway… this garden is also used for weddings and their guests, or so I believe. There is a little quaint cottage, a “Japanese” style gazebo with a fire pit and a small bar looking indoor area settled on a deck with stepping stones across a decent sized pond. It all looks and feels very “Zen”. I will admit, I was already impressed enough and they just had to go and blow my mind with a whole different era of landscape garden love.

Let me take you back to the first garden and the big arch shaped blue door that leads directly out to the most wonderful view of Dunbeath Castle, the North Sea, emerald green grass and a large egg. Yes an egg. There is nothing on the internet to tell me what the egg is for but we believe it is a type of memorial for someone important to the Dunbeath estate. A brief history search on Dunbeath Castle tells me it was originally built in the 15th century (1428), has been attacked and surrendered a couple of times, was remodeled in the 17th Century numerous times, has had many owners (around six or seven from what I can tell) and now belongs to a Mr Stuart Wyndham Murray-Threipland. This can all be found on our trusty google machine, Wikipedia and dunbeath.co.uk in more extensive detail.

So, back to the blue arch door. This is the exit from the first garden and the entrance to the most amazing view of the castle. It was like one of those little tree door entrances to a fairy world but I was still in the fairy world and exiting the garden to visit the fairy kings palace and boy was I speechless. I probably took 100000 photos because I just couldn’t capture it on my iPhone the way my eyes were seeing it. But that’s ok, my eyes got to see this site as it is and I’m SO happy with that. The sun was out saying hello and warming my face, I had been through an enchanted garden, I was staring at a beautifully well maintained castle surrounded by either ocean or emerald grass and I was in good company. What a good day.

Scotland and its historic castles constantly live up to expectations, but Dunbeath Castle raises the bar just that little bit higher. So I believe anyway!

I can highly recommend if you are ever planning a journey through the North of Scotland (Ever heard of the North Coast 500? Look it up, you won’t be disappointed) that you add Dunbeath Estate and Gardens to your “To Visit” list.

Seriously, I know I said it about 30 seconds ago, but once more, what a good day.