Corgarff

The White Castle and the High Glen

The castle stands white against the hillside above Corgarff, a plain sixteenth-century tower wrapped in a low wall shaped like a star. The points are not decoration. Each face carries a triangular salient pierced with musket loops, added by government troops who turned the tower into barracks after the 1745 rising. Coming off the Lecht on the curving A939, the white walls stand out well before anything else built comes into view.

The glen here is wide, shallow and high, the upper River Don running through open ground with steep, round-topped hills on either side. Managed woodland breaks the moor. Roe deer come down to the fields, and you may catch mountain hare and skylark near the castle itself.

Tea, Provisions and Lost Pubs

For food and provisions, Goodbrand & Ross is the fixed point. The tea room and gift shop sits on the A939 and has been run by the same owners since 2005. Everything is made to order — soup, paninis, baked potatoes, home-baked cakes, ice cream and freshly ground Italian coffee, with gluten-free and vegetarian choices when they can manage them. There is parking and outside seating, and children are welcome. The shop side runs to Scottish knitwear from Harley and Eribé, Scandinavian goods, jewellery, books, blankets, candles, handmade fudge and tablet, and gin and wine to take home.

A pub is the thing Corgarff no longer has. The Steading Bar over at Forbestown has been reported closed, and the community's own action plan sets out a plain wish: "We need a pub including refreshments." The Allargue Arms at Bridgend has its own history — a high, remote inn that once fed shooting parties and could be cut off by snowdrifts for weeks. In the winter of 1966 it took just two guests in six weeks, and mains electricity did not reach it until 1979.

The Former Church and Serious Walking

The former Church of Scotland church, Category B listed, dates from 1834–35 and is attributed to a Mr Daniel. It is a four-bay rectangle of squared rubble with pink-granite dressings, pointed-arch windows, a pinnacled bellcote and a galleried interior, standing quietly beside Corgarff Public Hall.

Walking here starts serious. The Brown Cow Hill circuit runs eighteen kilometres from the castle car park, climbing 575 metres over land-rover tracks, faint paths and pathless heather with bog and peat hags along the way. The reward from the 829-metre summit is a long roll-call of hills — Morven, Mount Keen, Lochnagar and the granite tors of Ben Avon — with Loch Builg and the upper Avon below. It is a full hill day, and there is no bus to the start. A gentler round follows an old military road past an eighteenth-century bridge, the church of Our Lady of the Snows and a stretch of the Don.

The Lecht and Winter Roads

Up at the top of the pass, the Lecht Ski Centre sits at 2,090 feet with twenty runs and fourteen lifts, hire and instruction, and a Penguin Park for two- to eight-year-olds. In summer the chairlift carries mountain bikes up to two trails. Kildrummy Castle is fourteen miles off and Tomnaverie Stone Circle fifteen.

Getting here means the A939, eight miles west of Strathdon, with snow gates at Cock Bridge and Bridge of Leachd that can close the road in bad weather; in winter it is worth checking conditions before you set out.

Inside the Garrison

The castle itself asks a little of you: 350 metres uphill from the car park on loose gravel, a good many stairs inside, no toilets, and only assistance dogs. Inside are reconstructed barrack rooms and a whisky still, from the years when the garrison here shifted from chasing Jacobite sympathisers to helping excisemen hunt down illicit distillers. The walk back down brings the white walls at your back and the road you drove in on threading away below.