Red Paint on the Rocks: the Kinnaird Head Wine Tower

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

Fraserburgh keeps its strangest building in plain sight. A few dozen paces from the old lighthouse on the headland stands the Kinnaird Head Wine Tower, a squat three-storey block of the 16th century that you enter at second floor level, with carved stone pendants inside and red paint smeared on the rocks beneath it. This corner of Aberdeenshire, on the north-east shoulder of Scotland, has a whole string of fortified sites that W. Douglas Simpson called the nine castles of the Knuckle, and two of them stand here together: the castle that became a lighthouse, and the little tower that local tradition says is haunted.

Kinnaird Head itself is a headland projecting into the North Sea, within the town of Fraserburgh. The Gaelic name, An Ceann Àrd, means high headland. The lighthouse is a category A listed building and the Wine Tower is a scheduled monument, which is to say both are protected at the top level of their respective systems.

Sir Alexander Fraser and the Castle That Cost Him a Home

Kinnaird Head Castle, also recorded as Fraserburgh Castle and Kinnairdshead Castle, was begun in March 1570. The builder was Sir Alexander Fraser, 8th laird of Philorth, born around 1536 and dead in 1623, the same man who in the 1590s transformed the fishing village of Faithlie into the burgh of Fraserburgh. The project ran away from him. The building of the castle led to such expenses that he was forced to sell Philorth Castle, the family home, which is a rare case of a laird bankrupting himself into a headland.

The family stayed connected to the place for generations. Alexander, 10th of Philorth, fought for the king at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, was badly wounded, survived and lived into his eighties. He inherited the title of Lord Saltoun in 1669 and in later years kept apartments at Kinnaird Castle. The last residents were Henrietta Fraser, 1698 to 1751, daughter of the 12th Lord Saltoun, and her husband John Gordon of Kinellar, 1684 to 1764.

The Night of 1 December 1787

In 1787 the castle was leased to the Trustees of the Northern Lights and converted into Kinnaird Head Lighthouse. Thomas Smith designed the lamp, and it was first lit on 1 December. That makes this the first lighthouse in Scotland to be lit by the Commissioners of Northern Lights, a distinction the town has never let go of. The structure was rebuilt in the 1820s, and the buildings around the base of the lighthouse are the work of Robert Stevenson.

A new lighthouse superseded it in 1991. The old one now sits inside the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses, which incorporates the original lighthouse along with a modern building holding lenses and other artefacts gathered from lighthouses across Scotland.

A Covert Chapel, or a Wine Store

The Wine Tower stands roughly 50 metres from the lighthouse and has been dated to the 16th century. The prosaic explanation for the name is that it served as a store associated with the castle, and the name may in fact be a corruption of Wynd Tower. Against that, the interior carries elaborate carved stone pendants, reputedly the result of its use as a covert chapel for the Catholic wife of Protestant Alexander Fraser. Reputedly is the operative word: it is a tradition attached to the carvings rather than a documented function.

The Drowned Suitor and the Girl on the Roof

The story that gives the tower its reputation is a folk tale, not a court record, and it should be read as one. It is reputed that in the cave below the tower, one of the Fraser family imprisoned his daughter’s boyfriend and left him to drown there. On learning of it, the daughter is said to have jumped from the roof of the tower. The red paint on the rocks below is there to illustrate her blood, a piece of deliberate stagecraft rather than any surviving stain.

No name, no date and no source is attached to either death in the record available here. That is worth stating plainly, because the tale is repeated locally with a confidence the evidence does not carry. What can be said is that the legend is old enough and fixed enough that someone has kept painting the rocks.

What Is Actually Reported at the Tower

The paranormal claim here is unusually restrained. According to local tradition, the tower is said to be haunted. That is the extent of it: no catalogue of apparitions, no recorded encounters, no procession of witnesses. Anyone arriving expecting a detailed ghost story will find instead a small locked tower on an exposed headland, a drowning cave beneath it and a legend that people have chosen to keep alive with a tin of red paint.

Seeing Kinnaird Head and the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses

The headland sits within Fraserburgh itself, so there is no remote hike involved. The old castle lighthouse is part of the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses, and Historic Environment Scotland publishes a visitor guide to the castle lighthouse. The Wine Tower is a scheduled monument standing about 50 metres away and is accessed via its second floor, an arrangement that tells you something about how little it was meant to be entered casually. Check opening arrangements with the museum before travelling, particularly out of season, and treat the rocks below the tower with the caution any North Sea headland deserves.

Address: Kinnaird Head, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

See Kinnaird Head for Yourself

Sources

• The Frasers of Philorth, Lords Saltoun
• The Frasers of Philorth
• historicenvironment.scot
• Wikipedia: Kinnaird Head

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