Balmoral Castle

Balmoral Castle ( bal-MORR-əl) is a large estate house in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and a residence of the British royal family. It is near the village of Crathie, 9 miles (14 km) west of Ballater and 50 miles (80 km) west of Aberdeen.

The estate and its original castle were bought from the Farquharson family in 1852 by Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. Soon afterwards, it was found that the house was too small, and the current Balmoral Castle was commissioned. The architect was William Smith of Aberdeen, and his designs were amended by Prince Albert. Balmoral is the private property of King Charles III, and is not part of the Crown Estate. It was the summer residence of Queen Elizabeth II, who died there on 8 September 2022.

The castle is an example of Scottish baronial architecture, and is classified by Historic Environment Scotland as a category A listed building. The new castle was completed in 1856, and the old castle demolished shortly thereafter.

Successive members of the royal family have added to the Balmoral Estate, and now it covers an area of 53,680 acres (21,725 ha) of land. It is a working estate, including grouse moors, forestry and farmland, as well as managed herds of deer, Highland cattle, sheep and ponies.

Text adapted from “Balmoral Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Balmoral Castle ranks #14 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #1 of the 167 mapped in Scotland. Founded 1390, it is older than 55% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 582 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 78,500 times in the last 60 days, more than 100% of the atlas. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Dundee, 66 km away. It is one of the 22 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Aberdeenshire. See how Scotland compares in the castle statistics.

View on the interactive castle map →

Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗