New Look Braemar Castle (Original)

New Look Braemar Castle Watercolour

In February 2020, I was inspired to paint a watercolour of Braemar Castle. It captured the solitude of the setting and its drab, dirty original harling colour. Since then, the community has worked to upgrade the castle and around 2022/3, it was re-rendered in a beautiful pink/cream colour. Now, the castle looks magnificent in the summer sun and I have painted it again in more detail.

To get the right colour, I applied multiple layers of watercolour paint, allowing each layer to dry before adding another. Watercolour paint dries lighter than when it is first applied, so it took three coats to achieve the correct colour in the light of that day.

Some History

Since the Middle Ages a castle has stood in the area of Braemar that became known as Kindrochit Castle and a stronghold of the Earls of Marr which succumbed to the Black Death and demolished by gunfire.

The present Braemar Castle was constructed in 1628 by John Erskine, Earl of Mar, as a hunting lodge and to counter the rising power of the Farquharson’s. After the Jacobite Risings of 1689 and 1715, the Castle was forfeited to the Crown burned out to stop it being used by Government troops.

It was bought by the Farquharson family. In 1748 the castle was leased to the Government and rebuilt as a garrison.

It was returned to the Farquharson family in 1831 and restored as their home until 2006 when it was leased to the community of Braemar who embarked on a programme of restoration and reopened to the public in 2008.

A further programme of restoration with Heritage funding has allowed the Castle to be reharled in the similar livery cream/pink colours of Craigievar Castle.