Empty for Forty Years: Haunted Castle Grant on Speyside

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated August 25, 2026 · How we verify

Ask around Speyside for a haunted Castle Grant story and you will get atmosphere rather than evidence. The building itself supplies plenty of the former: a Z-plan tower house a mile north of Grantown-on-Spey, in the Highlands of Scotland, that was the seat of the Clan Grant chiefs of Strathspey, then stood unoccupied for four decades, burned, was abandoned by its developers and passed through a run of owners whose names ended up in the courts rather than the guidebooks. What the documented record does not contain is a single verified ghost. That gap is worth stating up front, because it is the most honest thing anyone can say about the place.

What Stands a Mile North of Grantown-on-Spey

The castle is a Z-plan tower house dating from the fifteenth century. The surrounding lands had been held by the Clan Comyn before passing to the Grants in that same century, after which the castle became their main stronghold. It is a Category A listed building, and the grounds are included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland, which places both house and setting among the most highly protected in the country.

From Freuchie to Grant: The Renaming of 1694

The original name was Freuchie Castle, from ‘Fraoichaich’, a Scottish Gaelic descriptor for being of or abounding in heather. James Grant of Freuchie supported James V of Scotland. The name changed from Freuchie Castle to Castle Grant in 1694, when the lands were made into the regality of Grant. Anyone hunting older references to the site needs both names to find them.

Carved Beasts and Gilded Dormers Under the Sixth Laird

The sixth laird, John Grant, made improvements to the building. It was decorated with stone heraldic beasts and animals carved by Ralph Rawlinson, and the long gallery and the heads of the dormer windows were painted and gilded by John Anderson of Aberdeen. Though the Grants were Protestants, they joined James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose during the Scottish Civil War in the 1640s.

The eighth laird, Ludovick Grant, took the other side of the later argument. He supported the Hanoverians against the Stewarts and fought against the Jacobites in both the rising of 1715 and the rising of 1745. Castle Grant was nonetheless occupied by the Jacobites. In 1787, Robert Burns visited.

Requisition, the August 1982 Fire and Four Empty Decades

Sir Robert Lorimer restored the castle in 1912. The Army requisitioned it during the Second World War, and afterwards it stood unoccupied for four decades. A fire in August 1982 caused further damage. Its sale to a development company the following year came as something of a surprise, the Clan Grant Society having failed in a bid to buy it. By 1984 the castle was derelict, with renovation costs estimated at £400,000. The developers ran out of money and it was abandoned again.

Graham Keeler purchased the castle in 1994 and some restoration took place during that decade. In 2006 the businessman Craig Whyte bought it for £720,000. Castle Grant was later seized by the Bank of Scotland after Whyte, who had led Rangers F.C. into administration and liquidation in 2012, refused to make mortgage payments. In September 2014 it was sold to Sergey Fedotov, former chief executive of the Russian Author Society, who was subsequently arrested for fraud. The current owners bought the castle in 2022 and are restoring it as a family home.

Why the Ghost Claims Here Do Not Hold Up

A long-empty castle with fire damage, a Jacobite occupation and a lairdly line stretching back five centuries attracts stories almost automatically. The documented history of Castle Grant, however, records no apparitions, no named revenant and no witness account of anything unexplained. There is no published investigation, no tradition set down in the record and nothing that can be checked. Where other Highland seats come with a written spectre, this one comes with a bankruptcy trail. Treat any confident description of a lady on the stair here as folklore in the making rather than reportage.

Seeing Castle Grant Without Trespassing

This is a private home. The castle was sold by the Grant family in 1983 and has remained in private ownership since, and the present owners are living with a restoration project rather than running a visitor attraction. There is no public access, no tour and no ghost hunt. The reasonable approach is a distant view from the public road north of Grantown-on-Spey, and a visit to the town’s museum for the Strathspey context. Do not attempt the grounds.

Address: Castle Grant, one mile north of Grantown-on-Spey, Strathspey, Highland

See Castle Grant for Yourself

Sources

• Buildings > Castle Grant
• Castle damaged by fire
• Hotel plan for Castle Grant
• Craig Whyte's former Castle Grant home is sold
• Highland castle owner arrested over an alleged multi-million pound fraud
• Wikipedia: Castle Grant

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