Haddo House, (NTS) - Pitmedden

Exhibition of James Giles paintings; shop; restaurant with home baking; car park and dog exercise area in the Park. Disabled car parking beside house. Access: a lift to the first floor enables access for wheelchairs to most of the rooms on display. Gardens are wheelchair accessible over gravel paths.

Although not a castle, Haddo House is a most gracious stately home, and has been a family home for over 400 years of a branch of the Gordon family, Earls and Marquesses of Aberdeen.  One of the most homely stately houses in Scotland and one of the most elegant in the Northeast.

This appealing house was built in 1732 by William Adam, a pupil of Sir William Bruce and father of the Adam brothers, for William, 2nd Earl of Aberdeen.

Haddo House replaced the old House of Kellie, home of the Gordon’s of Methlick for centuries. Its crisp Georgian exterior belies its stunning Victorian interior, much of which is 'Adam Revival' carried out about 1880 for John, 7th Earl and 1st Marquess of Aberdeen and his Countess, Ishbel.

Haddo is backed by a charming terraced garden with fountain and geometric rose-beds flanked by herbaceous borders.

Mixed open woodland of specimen and commemorative