Crathes Castle in Kincardineshire presents one of the finest examples of
Scottish architecture of the sixteenth century. It is the seat of Sir
Robert Burnett of Leys, the eleventh baronet and descendant of the
founder.
Profoundly impressive are these great northern buildings, rising
straight and tall out of the very earth. As to their lower walls, they
are grim, forbidding, almost fiercely repellent. There is an aspect of
something like ruthless cruelty in the very way they come out of the
ground, without base or plinth or any such amenity--built in the old
barbarous days of frequent raiding and fighting, and constant need of
protection from marauders; when a man’s house must needs be a strong
place of defence.
This is the first impression. But the eye travelling upward sees the
frowning wall blossom out above into what has the semblance of a fairy
palace. It is like a straight, tall, rough-barked tree crowned with
fairest bloom and tenderest foliage. Turrets both round and square, as
if in obedience to the commanding wave of a magician’s wand, spring out
of the angles of the building and hang with marvellous grace of poise
over the abyss. There seems to be no actual plan, and yet there is
perfect harmony; the whole beautiful mass appears as if it had come into
being in some one far-away, wonderful, magical night! It is a sight full
of glamour and romantic impression--grim fortalice below, ethereal
fantasy aloft. Rough and rugged is the rock-like wall, standing dark and
dim in the evening gloom; intangible, opalescent are the mystic forms
above, in the tender warmth of the afterglow; cloud-coloured, faintly
rosy, with shadows pearly-blue.
[Illustration: THE YEW WALK, CRATHES