Scottish Houses and Castles - History, architecture, artworks and gardens

It needs to be said, and why not at the beginning: every journey, and all but a dozen of the miles travelled, passes through some of the most captivatingly beautiful landscapes in the British Isles. The variety of form, texture and mood is striking: high, heather-clad hills loom intermittently and there are glimpses of rugged coastline, but mostly you see hills and valleys green with pasture and broad-leaved trees, undulating sweeps of arable land, fields of sheep and cattle. 

This is the uplifting backdrop to the sixteen castles and country houses visited on this tour, from Duff House on the Moray Firth to Paxton House a couple of miles from the border with England. Among them are some of the greatest in the British Isles, and again, diversity is a striking feature: a couple of medieval castles, an amazing Renaissance royal palace, several distinctive baronial fortified dwellings, a splendid set of Baroque and Palladian mansions, a sprinkling of Victorian extensions and overlay and an Edwardian pastiche. 

Much of the architecture is distinctively Scottish, with one factor in particular differentiating it from elsewhere in Britain – the long alliance with France. On the other hand, there is a reason why some of the classical houses look like counterparts south of the border: the Adam family who so dominated architecture in England in the second half of the eighteenth century were Scottish. The buildings by William, father of James and John, will come as a revelation.  

Most have fine rooms and are filled with ancestral collections of various sorts, especially of paintings and furniture, of which there are superb examples.

The tour has been carefully planned so that it does not tire or overload, and at most sites there is time to relax, view on your own and explore the gardens and woodland walks.