The castle’s gardens now extend to over 530 acres and are home to a host of wildlife from roe deer and red squirrels to woodpeckers, buzzards and herons that nest high in the trees. There’s also a beautiful walled garden – almost 4 acres in size – full of specimen plants and ancient topiary hedges shaped from ancient yew trees that were first planted back in the early 17th century.
It is without doubt one of Scotland’s finest castles.
Project brief
For our design of the new adventure play at Crathes, the chosen site was the boundary edge of the area of mixed woodland to the north of the castle.
The adventure play was designed to offer a range of exciting features to enhance the overall play experience.
The site topography was both rocky and undulating, with a range of ground surfaces, an exciting variety of species and scale of trees and great views across the grounds.
