Fairy tale castle in the Scottish hills

Our afternoon jaunt today took us to Cloan, a fairy tale castle near Auchterarder whose gardens were open to the public under Scotland’s Garden scheme. (See extra).
It  has an intriguing history having started out around 1700 as a farmhouse and subsequently turned into the castle we know today.


Past visitors entertained there reads like an historical Who’s Who. 
During the early 20th century the owner, Viscount Haldane, was Secretary of State for War, Lord Chancellor and a member of the first Labour Government of 1924. 
As a result a host of renowned figures visited Cloan including Herbert Asquith, Ramsay Macdonald, Field Marshal Douglas (Earl) Haig, Randall Davidson (the Archbishop of Canterbury), Albert Einstein, John Buchan, James Barrie, Lord Baden-Powell, and Andrew Carnegie.


And Cloan is still in family ownership. We met one man who had come up from England to visit his relatives  at the start of Covid and stayed throughout lockdown.
 
Well, I can’t think of a better place to be during an epidemic.