“You’ll get there. It’ll take you no time at all.”
“To understand the accent?”
“Aye. Just don’t go asking people to talk slower.”
“Why?”
“They’re likely just to tell you to think faster.”
Just great.
“I’m just pullin’ your leg,” he says. “We get a lot of Americans visiting during the season, and they get by just fine.”
“Well, that’s good to know. I guess a lot of them visit because of the movie stuff.”
“Aye, and it’s not always wee ones that want to take a walk in Tollbride School of Enchantment and Sorcery,” he says, using the name of the biggest kid’s movie franchise which was partly filmed in Kilblair Castle. “We get a lot of American’s coming to visit the home of Rory Roy, the romantic highlander.” This is a popular Netflix series, Kennedy tells me. “Maybe you should watch it. You might pick up a bit o’ the brogue.”
I smile noncommittally.
“You can see the castle up ahead.”
The road rises to meet us, darkened heather-covered hills either side before a coastline appears in the distance. Craggy hills and a stretch of sandy beach, and between the car and coastline, there appears to be a cluster of grey, hemmed in by a wall then wrapped in towering fir trees.
“It doesn’t look like a castle.” I silently curse myself for saying so, knowing people can be protective of their homes.
“Aye, that’s because it’s more like a fortress.”
Ten minutes or more later, we round an ancient-looking hedge to be met with an equally ancient looking gatehouse that looks like it wasn’t built for show, but for fortification. The masonry above the arch is carved with a weather-worn shield and crest, dappled with lichen.
“A fortress?” A nervous sort of anticipation swirls in my stomach.
“Almost.” He shoots me a grin as we turn into a driveway lined with huge trees.
“This is some driveway. And this is a lot of garden to keep.” Lawns roll left and right, their expanse dotted with trees that mostly look like skeletons, only one or two showing the first bloom of spring.
“This is just front lawn,” he says dismissively. “Wait until you see the formal gardens, the maze, and the orchard. Then there are the family’s private gardens and a few other bits to care for.”
“How many gardeners are there?” Surely, he can’t take care of all that on his own.
“There are three others who work the land full-time and we get other people in to help from time to time.”
“Can I expect to see peacocks roaming about the place? And deer?” It looks like that kind of place. At least, the gardens do.
“Peacocks, aye.” He nods. “But there’s no deer park. There are deer out on the estate, though. Mostly red deer. Some roe.”
“The estate?”
“It’s no’ just pretty gardens. His grace owns thousands of hectares of land to the west. Land that he has stewardship of, that needs to be maintained. Thankfully, that’s no’ in my remit.”
His grace. That’s what you call a duke, if you happened to come upon one, so the internet says. Hello, your grace. Excuse me, your grace. Let me introduce you to his grace, the duke of . . . I’m not even sure. Kilblair Castle? No, I don’t think that’s it.
I had time to kill on the train and had googled the current family, including the duke. There wasn’t much that came up. Just the date the future duke took over the title, the family’s names and the like. The duke has some long-assed name, let me tell you! Henry Charles Alexander Theodore something or other. Must be a pain to fill out forms for him.
Then, just ahead, I spy the place itself. Kilblair Castle.
Before my google search, the name had conjured up images of fairy-tale turrets and buff-coloured walls covered in climbing roses. But I can’t blame Disney. I’d watched a documentary on TV recently, a behind-the-scenes look at some Scottish country estate. But what I’m looking at is far from a fairy tale and far from what the castle’s website depicts. Like the man says, it’s a fortress. Four storeys high, it has turrets, and battlements and looks like the kind of place you’d expect to see soldiers pouring boiling oil down onto the heads of marauding invaders. In short, this castle is anything but quaint.
As we drive past the entrance, I notice a round tower with a Disney-esque roof and another entrance that seems to have been bricked up at some point long ago, as well as windows that seems to be set back into walls at least two feet thick. We drive along the building and around another corner, and then I’m looking at a part of a building that’s less castle and more palace than anything else.
“We came in through the west gate.” Cameron slides me a wry look. “It’s no’ the best view of the place.”