A must-see: above the main door rises a carved frontispiece reckoned "probably the most splendid heraldic doorway in the British Isles." Read it as a ladder climbing from earth to heaven: at the foot, the arms of George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly, and his wife Henrietta Stewart; above them, those of King James VI and his queen, Anne of Denmark; higher still, the Crucifixion and Resurrection; at the summit, St Michael overcoming evil — the triumph of Good. On the south front, two double-height oriels carry a frieze of giant relief letters: GEORGE GORDOVN FIRST MARQVIS OF HVNTLIE / HENRIETTE STEVART MARQVESSE OF HVNTLIE, the "16" and "02" bracketing the whole to date its completion to 1602.
Did you know?
This Catholic and royalist sculpted programme was raised by a marquess who was himself Catholic, in a Scotland turned firmly Protestant — a political as much as an artistic boldness, one that more than once brought Huntly disgrace and cannon fire.
Info
- Exterior decoration, on a partly ruined castle.
- The lettered frieze is among the largest monumental inscriptions in Scotland.
- The sculpture / decorative dimension of Huntly Castle (see the linked monument entry).