Well, we weren't awoken by any ghosts!

Balintore Castle was built in the early 1860's as a hunting lodge for the Victorian elite. Even at the time, it was only occupied during summer and fall. The original owner died ten years after construction, and it went through several owners until the last one used it regularly until the 1960's. 

It was then that it began to deteriorate. 

However even into the 1980's there were books, kitchen crockery, art, and even a heavy slate pool table in the castle. Various owners promised restoration, but were scared off when they realized the enormity of the undertaking.

Our first view of Balintore Castle!

Wow!

Fantastic!

Into the 90's, the then owner was a Taiwanese businessman. Who once again was not doing any work on the building. There is a legal procedure in Scotland that can force the owner to sell, and it took 8 years for this to complete in order for the current owner, Dr. David Johnston to gain control of the structure in 2007.

David has been working on the building since 2007, and by 2019 he was ready to open several rooms for guests to stay to help pay for the incredibly expensive renovations.

David met us at the castle, and welcomed us to our room!

We were staying in "the Redd Room".

View from our window.

Two of the available rooms are on the top floor. Now, keep in mind that the castle is an ongoing, active construction site. This is not a five star luxury stay! We were walked up flights of stairs that are unfinished...sturdy, and safe... but unfinished. It all adds to the ambience!

There is a lot of this kind of thing.

But our room and the facilities were perfectly functional.

The room is decorated with period furnishings.

Signatures of repairmen who did work in the castle in 1877.

We have two bathrooms! One that has a wash tub, and one that is located in the turret just off our bedroom.

Our main bathroom.

Print of Queen Victoria and the Royal Family.

The small bathroom in the turret off our bedroom.

There is also a well equipped kitchen for room guests to use.

Balintore Castle.

View from the front of the castle.

The front facade.

As I said, the castle is an active construction site.

There had been a large oriel window where that big hole is. 

It collapsed some time in the 1990's.

Our bedroom is the top right window.

Another view.

Door knocker.

We haven't had any kind of a tour yet, but hopefully David will have time to show us the main highlights before we leave this morning. There are approximately 85 rooms in the castle! There would have been probably 12 servants living here during the times it was occupied... as well as The Great Hall, a drawing room, dining room, library, gallery, bedroom suites, multiple servant areas, kitchen, pantry, beer cellar and more.

He keeps a detailed blog of the restoration work at https://balintorecastle.blogspot.com/ that goes all the way back to 2011.

We went for a walk in the area, and ended up in some fields on a hill behind the castle.

You would have to zoom in to try to see it, but there is a herd of deer.

At first, we thought they were cattle. They were really far away. Then I used the 100x zoom on my phone to get a closer up photo. The 100x zoom is not very good quality, but you can certainly see that these are not cattle!

No, these are not cattle!

It turns out they are Red Deer. A huge herd of them. And they were coming our way. We stood still and they kept coming. You could tell they knew we were there, looking our way and sniffing with their heads up in the air. But they actually got quite close.

This is with a much better quality 10x zoom.

I took a video for you...

It was really something. I mean, we're in quite a remote area but we weren't expecting this kind of wildlife. Further along we met a young man out walking and he had also watched the deer. He said he has seen them before, but never this many. He said there must have been over 200 animals.

The entrance road to the castle.

We slept really well! It was so quiet... we were not woken up by any ghosts! However, every castle is haunted... here is the story of the hauntings of Balintore Castle... https://www.scottish-paranormal.co.uk/post/the-secret-hauntings-of-balintore-castle

We wish we had made plans to stay here longer. Yes, it's expensive compared to what we normally spend, but at £110 ($207 CAD, $151 USD) per night it's cheap for the experience of staying in a castle!

We had a great stay, and really enjoyed it!

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