Description of the attraction
Scottish castles are rightfully called the most romantic sights of Great Britain. And if the English and Welsh castles are harsh and inaccessible, then the castles of Scotland seem to have left the pages of a collection of fairy tales - magical and graceful, like the palaces of fairy kings and queens.
All this fully applies to one of the most beautiful castles in Scotland - Blair Castle, located in Perthshire. This is the ancestral home of the Murray clan, the Dukes of Atol. But the castle on this place was not started by Murray at all, but by John Comyn, Lord Badenoch, the northern neighbor of the Earl of Atola. Taking advantage of the fact that the count went on a crusade, Badenoch appropriated part of his lands. Upon his return, the count filed a complaint with King Alexander III, seized his land back and built his castle on this site, which looked like a typical castle-fortress of that time.
In the middle of the 18th century, during the Georgian period, the castle was completely rebuilt and turned from a gloomy medieval building into an elegant house. In the era of Queen Victoria, under the leadership of architects David Bruce and William Byrne, the castle was reconstructed again. The turrets and decorations that disappeared in the Georgian period are returning, a magnificent ballroom has been built, which has survived to this day. It still serves today for balls, meetings and banquets. Visitors are allowed into the castle, and the entrance to the castle grounds and the garden is free. Open to the public, the castle's rooms contain excellent collections of paintings, antique furniture, hunting trophies and Murray clan memorabilia.
The castle houses a garrison of the Atola mountaineers - the only legal private army in Europe.
