Aberdour Castle

Aberdour Castle is located in the Kingdom of Fife and its position along the coast of Fife offers beautiful views towards Edinburgh and across the Firth of Forth.
You can easily access the location by car and train.
It was very convenient to park my car at the train station and walk over a small wooden bridge, connecting the train station car park with the castle driveway. A 3 min walk and you are at the castle entrance.
What brought me to Aberdour castle was the historic fact that it is one of Scotland’s oldest standing castles. Its origin dates back to the 12^th century (the original hall house) and was extended over the years by family members of the Mortimer’s, Moray’s and Douglas. James Douglas (Lord of Dalkeith) became Earl of Morton 1458. Aberdour remained second residence to Dalkeith Palace for some time until Dalkeith Palace was sold.
Walking up the driveway I could see the ruins of the old tower house on my right and during my exploratory walk through the house and gardens I found the old Tower house area the most interesting. Nowadays it is a ruin and not much is left of its splendor, however, the walls tell a story — especially the collapsed wall on the west side. The masons did extraordinary work. You can walk through the remains of the kitchen and bedrooms.
There is a long «Hall» in the middle of the building, which is quite impressive and I can imagine a few parties having taken place there over the years. On the east side you can visit the newer part of the house (¹⁶⁄₁₇^th century extension), which still houses a wonderfully painted ceiling.
The walled and terraced gardens are impressive and I have never seen so many sun clocks/​sundials in one place. I think I counted at least 3. I was especially impressed by the sun clock in the back garden towards the doocot as it was decorated with different symbols, for example a heart, which kind of reminds me of Robert the Bruce’s heart shaped emblem at Montrose Abbey. Apparently it is the Douglas heart emblem.
The building nowadays is maintained and manned by Historic Scotland and the personell is very friendly. If you do not have a HS pass you pay £5.50 adult entrance fee and £3.30 for children. A visit definitely worth the money.
Enjoy!

Aberdour Castle is a neat place to visit. After enjoying a lovely walk on the Fife Coastal Path from Burntisland to Aberdour, my father and I arrived at the castle that’s in the town of Aberdour and right next to the train station. The castle is part of the Historic Scotland network and it was great using my membership card (great value for those living in Scotland who can use them for a year!) to get into the castle.
The castle itself mainly consists of ruins since part of the ramparts and a side and the roof are missing on one part, and most of the far side of the castle is missing. The handy explanations along the way were explaining where neat features such as a dough trough and bread ovens used to be — they were clearly discernible with some direction to know what some of the things were.
The other part of the castle was much more intact and also nicely redone/​preserved. I really enjoyed seeing the great hall and also the side room with beautifully painted ceiling panels.
You could tell that the gardens used to be really stunning in their day, although they are currently terraced grassy gardens with a picturesque dovecote down the far end.
Aberdour Castle is neat to see in a quick visit to learn more about the history of the area, although the visit itself won’t take you too long (45 minutes or an hour tops).

Lovely Castle next to Aberdour Railway Station on the route to Burntisland. Well maintained gardens and grounds with large castle & dovecot.