Tolquhon Castle (Scotland)

Tolquhon Castle (also Tolquhoun, pronounced toh-hon) is located about 20 km northwest of Aberdeen in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Already in the early 13th century in the possession of the Preston family, it was not given up as a residence by them until the 18th century.

The Preston family was named as the royal Thane of Formartine, the land between the Don and Ythan rivers, as early as the end of the 12th century. This also owned the lands of Craigmillar near Edinburgh. When Henry Preston, Lord of Formartine, died in 1420 without a male heir, the property was divided. Tolquhon fell to Preston's son-in-law, John Forbes.

The Tower House, built by either Henry Preston or his son-in-law, remained the family residence until 1584.

William Forbes, 7th Laird of Tolquhon, began renovating the existing castle in April 1584. The existing residential tower, called "Preston's Tower", was integrated into the new castle (presumably for reasons of convenience). In December 1589, after the end of the building work, he proudly listed the new rooms and the outbuildings, "my houiss, tour, and place of Tolquhone", in one of his surviving writings.

After William Forbes' death, the castle began to decline slowly under the successive heirs. As militarily successful soldiers who served under various kings, the Lairds of Tolquhon mostly moved their homes. William, the 11th laird, was forcibly "rescued" from the castle by his comrades after being wounded in 1718 and never returned. Subsequently taken over by the Earl of Aberdeen and used as a better farm, the castle was still inhabited until the middle of the 19th century. The further decline did not end until 1929, when Tolquhon Castle was handed over to state supervision by the then owner, the Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair under his title as "Earl of Haddo".