Kinnaird Head Castle consists of an altered massive 15th-century keep, rectangular in plan, of four storeys and formerly with a garret. The parapet, with open rounds at the corners, has a machiolated projection in the centre of each parapet. The walls are harled and whitewashed.

The enterance was at first floor level, and a turnpike stair has been removed. The basement is vaulted, and the hall was on the first floor.

The Wine Tower, standing about 50 yards away, is a lower tower, now of three storeys, all of them vaulted. The unlit first floor is only entered by a trapdoor from the second floor, which is itself only reached from an outside ladder. The basement has no stairs to the floors above. The upper vault has three finely carved heraldic pendants, with the Fraser arms and those of James V. The upper chamber may have been used as a chapel.

It was the property of the Frasers of Philorth, Sir Alexander Fraser built the harbour at Fraserburgh - the town was originally called Faithlie - came near to bankrupting himself, and had to sell much of his property in 1611. A lighthouse was built into the top of the castle in 1787, and the outbuildings were built around it in 1820 by Robert Stevenson, grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson. It now forms part of a lighthouse exhibition.

Sir Alexander Fraser is said to have had his daughter's lover, of whom he disapproved, chained to a sea cave below the Wine Tower, where the poor man drowned. His daughter, Isobel, threw herself to her death on finding that her lover had been killed. An appirition is said to been seen by the Wine Tower whenever there is a storm.

Managed by the kinnaird Head Trust.

Joint ticket with Scotland's National Lighthouse Museum.

Open seven days a week, all year.

Car parking. Bus parking. Toilets. Exhibition. Visitor Centre. Refreshment facilities. Shop. Reasonable wheelchair access, Disabled toilets.

How to get there:-

On a promontory in Fraserburgh, on the A92. To the north of Fraserburgh, on minor roads north of A98, north of harbour just south of the sea, at Kinnaird Head.

Tel:- 44 (0) 1346 511022.

Machiolation,.......A slot for dropping stones or shooting arrows