Balmoral Castle

Balmoral Castle is in Scotland, far up in the Highlands, with hills and forests all around.

It has towers with pointy roofs and a tall tower with a clock. Kings and queens have come here for holidays for more than 170 years.

Balmoral Castle stands on a large Highland estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, inside the Cairngorms National Park. The estate covers around 50,000 acres of land.

The castle has been the Highland home of the British royal family since Prince Albert bought it for Queen Victoria in 1852. It has gray granite walls, turrets with cone-shaped roofs and a tall clock tower, but it was built in the 1850s as a home for Queen Victoria's family.

Balmoral Castle lies in the parish of Crathie and Braemar, Aberdeenshire, within the Cairngorms National Park. The castle's own history page calls it the Highland home of the royal family since 1852, when Prince Albert purchased the estate for Queen Victoria after first leasing it in 1848; the estate covers around 50,000 acres.

Historic Environment Scotland lists the castle with its parterre and terrace walls in Category A (record LB51460). It describes a four-sided main house, about 120 by 113 feet, with a dominant clock tower block to the east.

The Great Tower stands at one end of the castle. It has a big clock and little round towers with pointed roofs at its corners.

The front door is inside a covered porch where carriages could stop.

The Great Tower rises at the east end of the castle. Its clock was made by Frederick Dent of London and installed in 1856, and round turrets with cone-shaped roofs sit at three of its corners.

At the main entrance, a porch with wide arches, called a porte cochère, let carriages drive right up to the door. A separate ballroom, about 74 feet long, stands at a lower level next to the castle, and the gardens were laid out from 1855 to 1859.

HES describes the Great Tower in stages, with a panel of the Royal Arms of Scotland on its south face, a clock stage at the fourth floor and circular angle turrets with conical roofs at the northwest, southwest and southeast corners, enclosing crenellated parapets. The clock is by Frederick Dent of London (1856).

The single-story porte cochère on the south front has carriage arches on its east and west faces. The ballroom, almost detached, measures about 74 × 31 feet outside, with a dais and an orchestra gallery. The associated gardens date from 1855–1859, and the castle's gardens were first opened to the public in 1931.

Today, visitors can walk in the gardens and see the ballroom. Since 2024, some can even take a tour inside!

In the photo, ivy climbs up the walls, and a wide green lawn lies in front.

The castle is still a royal home, but parts of it open to visitors at certain times of year: the grounds, the gardens and the castle ballroom. On 1 July 2024, the castle opened rooms inside to the public for the first time, on guided tours with tickets.

The photo was taken on 14 July 2004 from the south. You can see the entrance porch on the left, walls covered in green ivy, the Great Tower with its clock on the right and a wide striped lawn in front.

Balmoral's grounds, gardens and ballroom open seasonally, and since 1 July 2024 guided tours have taken ticketed visitors inside the castle for the first time, the castle says. The 1925 iron gates at the estate entrance carry the initials of King George V and Queen Mary and were made by a local blacksmith.

The photograph (14 July 2004, by Stuart Yeates) shows the south front: the porte cochère at the left, the ivy-clad main block, a tower with a green dome-shaped roof and the Great Tower with its clock at the right, and a flag flying from the tower's flagpole.