Craigievar (Gael, creagach-bharr, 'the rocky point'), a hamlet and an estate, with a mansion, in Lumphanan and Leochel-Cushnie parishes, central Aberdeenshire, 3¾ and 45/8 miles NNW of Lumphanan station, this being 27 miles W by S of Aberdeen, under which there is a post office of Craigievar. The hamlet has a public school; and fairs for cattle, sheep, and horses are held at it on the Friday before the third Wednesday of April, the Friday before 26 May (or 26th, if Friday), the Thursday after the last Tuesday of June o. s., the day of July after St Sairs, the Thursday after the second Tuesday of August o. s., and the Friday after the first Tuesday of September o. s. The estate belonged to the Mortimers from 1457 and earlier down to 1610, when it was purchased by William Forbes of Menie (1566-1627), a cadet of the Forbeses of Corse, who, ' by his diligent merchandising in Denmark and other parts, had become extraordinary rich. ' His son and namesake (15931648), a zealous Covenanter, and the breaker up of the freebooter Gilderoy's band, was created a baronet in 1630; his sixth descendant, the present and eighth baronet, Sir William Forbes (b. 1836; suc. 1846), holds 9347 acres in the shire, valued at £8539 per annum. The Mortimers are said to have commenced the castle, but to have been stayed by lack of funds; by William Forbes it was finished in 1626. Built of granite, a tall, narrow clustered tower, seven stories high, it is in the best style of Flemish castellated architecture, one of the most perfect specimens extant, and as such is figured in five of Billings' plates-three showing the exterior with its corner turrets, corbelling, and crow-stepped gables; one, the banqueting hall, with mighty fireplace, oaken furnishings, and 'curiously plaistered' ceiling and chimney-piece; and the fifth, a bedroom, not so unlike Queen Mary's at Holyrood.—Ord. Sur., sh. 76, 1874. See vol. i. of Billings' Baronial Antiquities (1845).
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