Conservation of Crathes Castle’s armorial panels

Standing proudly on the south-west turret is a figure thought to represent Alexander Burnett, the 12th Laird, who completed the castle. Dormers boast patriotic unicorns, the national animal of Scotland. Cannons project boldly at all angles, reminding you of the ancestral military strength and feudal lordship of the family who lived here. But the most essential piece of ornamentation, the piece that no self-respecting castle owner could be without, is the all-important armorial panels. These are inset, carved stone panels which feature the heraldry or coat of arms of the family (or families) who owned the castle. The panels are usually located in prominent positions and would have originally been brightly coloured to stand out against the castle walls.

Extensive rules govern heraldic depictions. For example, in an impaled coat of arms (one which sees two families united such as through marriage) the man’s coat of arms are on the left and the woman’s are on the right. The symbols used in the coat of arms also tell you a little bit about the person they’re attributed to – for example the use of a certain type of helmet above the shield would reveal the title held by the person, assigned by the Crown. The images used in a coat of arms would be unique to each family and would have been instantly recognisable. The coat of arms could be ‘read’ as you approached the tower house, so you would make no mistake as to who lived there and their status in society.

At Crathes there are six armorial panels adorning the walls of the castle, along with an ornate pedimented piece over the Great Hall window. The main showcase is on the south elevation, where the three main armorial panels sit high above the window of the Great Hall and would have been the first panels seen upon approach to the castle. They tell us who was responsible for the construction of the tower. On the left is the impaled arms of Alexander Burnett, 9th Laird of Leys and his wife Janet Hamilton – they began construction of the tower and completed it up to the Great Hall level in 1553. On the right is the arms of Alexander Burnett, 12th Laird of Leys and his wife Katharine Gordon – they completed the tower and moved into their new family home in 1596. Above them sits the royal coat of arms, demonstrating the Burnett family’s power to hold the lands and the castle as decreed by the Crown.

The Burnett coat of arms is identifiable through its use of ivy, generally in the form of three flanking leaves, alongside the Horn of Leys, representing the ivory hunting horn gifted to the Burnetts by King Robert the Bruce following their support in the Wars of Independence. The Hamilton family is represented by the use of cinquefoils (small five-leafed flowers), and the Gordon family by the boar heads. Heraldic symbols for these families can be seen throughout Crathes Castle, both on the exterior and in the painted decoration, furniture and ceiling bosses inside the castle.

Below the three armorials we can see an ornately carved pediment above the Great Hall window. It boasts delicately twisting holly leaves with the Horn of Leys as the centrepiece. On the east side of the castle, above the original entrance door, we can see a monogram featuring the interlinked initials of Alexander and Katharine and the date 1596. Elsewhere on the castle, we can see armorials that represent later Burnett lairds, such as Sir Thomas Burnett, 1st Baronet of Leys and his wife Jean Moncrieff (represented by a lion) and Sir Robert Burnett, 7th Baronet of Leys and his wife Margaret Dalrymple Elphinstone (represented by a saltire with diamond lozenges).