Gight Castle

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

This edition is copyright © The Editors of the Gazetteer for Scotland, 2002-2022.

It has taken much time and money to make the six-volumes of Groome's text freely accessible. Please help us continue and develop by making a donation. If only one out of every ten people who view this page gave £5 or $10, the project would be self-sustaining. Sadly less than one in thirty-thousand contribute, so please give what you can.

Use the tabs on the right of this page to see other parts of this entry

Gight, a ruined castle in Fyvie parish, N Aberdeenshire, on the left bank of the Ythan, 3¹/₈ miles ENE of Woodhead or Fyvie village, and 9 SE of Turriff. Crowning the brink of a rocky eminence, with the Braes of Gight on one side, and the Braes of Haddo or Formartine on the other, it commands a circle of exquisite scenery, dates from remote times, and continued to be inhabited till the latter part of last century. It figures commonly in history as the House of Gight, was plundered by the Covenanters in 1644, and now is remarkable only for the great strength of its remaining walls. The estate, having belonged for many generations to the Maitlands, became about 1479 the property of William Gordon, third son of the second Earl of Huntly. It remained in possession of his lineal descendants till 1785, when the last heiress, Catherine Gordon of Gight, married the Hon. John Byron; so that it would have passed to their son, Lord Byron the poet, had it not been sold in 1787 to the third Earl of Aberdeen.—Ord. Sur., sh. 87, 1876.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer