“Do you think me mad?” So asked the Queen Mother in a letter to her treasurer, Sir Arthur Penn. Queen Elizabeth was on a trip to Caithness in 1952, just a short walk from John O’Groats, when she came across a rundown little castle by the sea. Gale force winds have blown the roof from Barrogill Castle and the 16th-century stately was about to be sold for tuppence. “This seemed so sad that I thought I would buy it & escape there occasionally when life becomes hideous!” the Queen Mother told Penn. “It might be rather fun to have a small house so far away—the air is lovely, and one looks at Orkney from the drawing room!”
Nearly a century later, and the manor—rechristened by Elizabeth with its original name, the Castle of Mey—has passed through the royal family, becoming a staple of King Charles III’s annual holiday in Scotland. The King spent his childhood around the treeless estate of the most northerly castle in Britain, though Princess Margaret preferred to spend her summers in Mustique than “mummy’s draughty castle.” The beloved royal retreat—which offers a bed and breakfast, for any guests wanting to follow in the footprints of the Queen Mother—is currently playing host to Charles, as it does every year before he makes his way to Balmoral. And while the King enjoys his summer getaway, let’s talk you through the history of the Castle of Mey.
A safe haven for the Queen Mother, the castle’s origins are slightly less serene than its royal rebrand. Sometime around the turn of the 1560s, it was built by the 4th Earl of Caithness as a gift for his second son, William Sinclair. In a shocking example of sibling favoritism, the Earl promptly imprisoned his younger son, John, within the walls of the family seat at Girnigoe Castle. On a trip from Mey to Girnigoe, William Sinclair learned that his brother was (perhaps understandably) plotting an escape from his country house incarceration, and ran to tell his father. William (perhaps understandably) was murdered. With its owner otherwise indisposed, the Castle of Mey was taken up by George Sinclair, who named the family the Sinclairs of Mey. In 1789, one of his descendants changed the name of this new family seat to Barrogill Castle – it remained their ownership for a century.
The Queen Mother poses with her corgi, Honey, outside the Castle of Mey—the only home she ever owned outright
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The late Queen Elizabeth II accompanied by the the Prince Charles, the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Eugenie, and Princess Beatrice after a private family holiday
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Barrogill underwent significant renovations after the twelfth Earl of Caithness sought the architect William Burn, master of the Scottish Baronial revival, to design a lavish entrance hall and dining room. Around this time, the Earl’s son Alexander built “Lady Fanny’s Seat,” a monument to his chum Charles John Canning, who would go on to become the first Viceroy of India.
After the fifteenth Earl died childless and unmarried, he passed the castle on to F G Heathcote, whose widow then sold the estate to Captain F.B. Imbert-Terry—who would later come across the Queen Mother on one very influential trip to Scotland with Commander and Lady Doris Vyner.
After Elizabeth bought the castle, and promptly restored it to its original name, the Castle of Mey, she would visit her new holiday home when times got “hideous”—or for three weeks every August, around her birthday, and later in October. According to the Express, it was the only home that the Queen Mother owned outright, and she would often while away the hours combing the beach for shells, which she would then arrange on picture frames hanging on the walls – a tray of her shells is still perched by the grand staircase, so the story goes.
With paintings by Prince Philip on either side of the fire palace, and cranberry glasses inspired by Queen Victoria dotted around the tables, Mey really was a home away from home for Elizabeth. Tours of the castle have revealed stuffed animal teddies, including the Loch Ness Monster, and handwritten notes cast aside on antique letter desks.
Prince Charles unveils a seat in memory of the Queen Mother by the walls of the Castle of Mey
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In his role as the Duke of Rothesay, Charles opened a new visitor center at Mey alongside Camilla, then the Duchess of Rothesay
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The Queen Mother passed away in 2002, and the Castle of Mey transferred to the ownership of a trust, whose former royal equerry Ashe Windham, the 20th Earl of Caithness, and Alan Titchmarsh. Then, in 2019, the Prince’s Foundation (run by the then Prince Charles, or the Duke of Rothesay, as he is known in Scotland), took charge of the Castle. According to the foundation, their priorities for the royal estate are: “The preservation of buildings and monuments; the promotion of historical and architectural education; the preservation of the Aberdeen Angus breed of cattle, and the championing of wider benefits to the community, while the Duke of Rothesay and The Prince’s Foundation is certain to make the continuation of his grandmother’s legacy a priority.”
One of the first projects of the new administration was to combine the stables and granary to open Granary Lodge, a bed and breakfast that advertises itself as a space for “couples to recharge, feel special and succumb to the peace and tranquillity of the Caithness countryside.”
And King Charles has certainly inherited his grandmother’s love of the Castle of Mey, kicking off his annual Balmoral trips with a visit to the estate. According to Sally Bedell Smith, “His habit during these visits has been to spend his mornings reading documents and to set aside some afternoons for fishing on the Thurso, Helmsdale, or Laxford rivers.”
A view of the Castle of Mey, which sits a four hour drive from Balmoral
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The King, she wrote, finds the opportunity to “take the wheel of his Range Rover and drive as long as three hours to reach a coveted beat. Along the way, he would occasionally pause to roll down the window and chat with a farmer leading a herd of cows.”
In 2018, Prince Harry took Meghan Markle to the Castle to spend some time with her soon-to-be father in law. In his bombshell biography, Spare, the Prince recounts the moment Charles learned that Meghan shared a birthday with his grandmother, the former chatelain of Mey: “At the memory of Gan-Gan, and the link between her and my bride, he suddenly became buoyant, telling stories I’d never heard, essentially performing, showing off for Meg.”
And as the royal family look forward to this year’s summer holiday in Balmoral, no doubt the Castle of Mey will be welcoming its regal residents once more.
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