Do You Have Enough Friends To Fill A 17-Bedroom Scottish Castle?

Unless you have a Scottish castle or a grand country pile to call your own, hosting parties when you live in a rural area can often pose a challenge. With only one to three spare bedrooms available, and not wanting to ask your no-longer-teenaged guests to crash on the floor, brave a blow-up bed or curl up cramped on the sofa, it is drearily dry designated drivers and hotel stays to the rescue.

But if you’ve ever dreamed of a mass sleepover with all of your friends and family under one roof, this property may just be the one for you. With not just two, not three but 17 bedrooms in this 19th century Scottish castle, designated drivers are the least of your concerns. After all, who needs a car when you have your very own stables and railway station? 

Discover A Scottish Castle With Its Very Own Railway

Lording over Berwick-upon-Tweed, just north of the English-Scottish border, Ayton Castle is regarded as one of Scotland’s finest baronial-style buildings – and is one of only two baronial structures by renowned architect James Gillespie Graham. While ‘baronial’ originally means ‘related to barons’, architecturally it refers to the 19th-century Scottish style which revived medieval castle features such as turrets, but used them to create large comfortable mansions rather than the cold defensive structures of the feudal years. 

With the medieval Barony of Ayton (dating back to 1324) also on the market, the castle is built around the original medieval tower house. This peel tower was once the stronghold of the historic Home family and was later captured by the English 1497 – becoming the site of a peace-making treaty between the two nations. Eventually replaced by a classical mansion – which burnt down in 1834 – the current Traitors-worthy castle was designed in 1854 and expanded in 1860. 

Famous Fans

In 1873, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn author Mark Twain made a visit to Ayton Castle. He fell so deeply in love with the Bonnar & Carfae designed interiors, that he took the dining room fireplace mantle back home with him – which remains in his house museum in Hartford, Connecticut to this day. 

Step Inside Ayton Castle

Featuring 17th century Scottish-style plasterwork in the three state rooms, this castle remains rich in history to this day. Do not fear any crumbling stone walls, however, as the current owners have undertaken significant improvements since 2014, including partial rewiring, re-plumbing and the redecoration of several of the principal rooms. 

With a family wing in the southern end and service areas and courtyard to the north, the property also includes a private chapel with a kitchenette and dining space, as well as a kitchen plus butler’s pantry located conveniently near to the dining room and service entrance. The first floor offers twelve bedrooms and six bathrooms alone, with four more bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second floor. Meanwhile, the lower ground and basement levels provide secondary accommodation, including a former servants’ hall, storerooms, and domestic quarters around the service courtyard. 

And Out

Alongside the central castle (in case you were in desperate need of even more room for your limitless guests), the property boasts cottages, gate lodges and stable flats. Set within 160 acres of countryside on the Scottish borders, the surrounding gardens feature a 16th century dovecote alongside formal garden terraces, parkland and woodland. If walking across your extensive castle grounds sounds like too much trouble for your tired legs, simply hop aboard your very own railway which winds throughout the grounds. Spanning 600m of track, the narrow gauge railway comes with its own platform, ticket office, shed and joiner’s shop. 

If saddling up is more your style, the current owners also run a livery business on the grounds centred around the impressive stable block: a two story courtyard complex with three stable flats. There is stabling for approximately nine horses, various loose boxes, several stores, a staff room, a tack room, workshop and a double garage. There is also an all-weather manège, which is actively used for the training of horses in riding and dressage skills with a further four loose boxes behind the barn. 

Where Is It?

The property lies two miles away from the Berwickshire coast and near the village of Ayton, which has a store, primary school and pub. Berwick-upon-Tweed, seven miles away, offers East Coast rail links to Edinburgh and London, while the nearby A1 provides access to Edinburgh and Newcastle airports.

How To Buy

Ayton Castle is on the market through the GSC Grays Alnwick with a guide price of over £3,250,000. Find out more at gscgrays.co.uk