Bed and breakfast availability
Aboyne b&b, guesthouse and hotel accommodation

Visit Aboyne and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Aboyne, Aberdeenshire. To most folk who have made its acquaintance, the name Aboyne conjures up a vision of Games Day on the Green of Charleston, a very large grassy arena flanked on two sides by the houses of the modern village, and of the panoply of pipes and pennants as the Marquess of Huntly, the Chief of the Games, takes the field. The Games, which are held annuall, were instituted in their modern form in 1867, but it is claimed that they are merely a revival of the ancient gathering held there and suppressed after the '45 Rising. They are considered by some of the best judges to be the premier athletic meeting of the kind in Scotland, since very stringent rules have always been enforced, and the site on the level haughland below the confluence of the Dee and the Tanar is completely flat. The Aboyne Games Committee deserves credit for having banished the spectacle of girl Highland dancers arrayed in a travesty of male attire weighed down with rows of jingling medals. They have insisted on the girl dancers' wearing what is called the Aboyne Dress, a simpler, more feminine uniform based on 18^th century Scots peasant costume.

The Aboyne village of today is largely the creation of Sir Cunliffe Brooks of Glentanar (whose daughter had married the 11^th Marquess of Huntly) and dates from the 1880s. It is not, however, without its architectural distinction, two notable highlights being the Victory Hall and War Memorial and St Thomas's Episcopal Church. The original Charleston of Aboyne owed its origin to Charles Gordon, 1st Earl of Aboyne, the fourth son of George, 2^nd Marquess of Huntly, who in 1670 obtained a charter giving him authority to erect a burgh of barony in close proximity to Aboyne Castle.

The first Aboyne Castle, which appears in l3^th century records as the “castrum de Obeyn”, a motte-and-bailey stronghold, was followed by a stone keep, which was replaced in the 17^th century by a tower-house, part of which still stands at the West end of the mansion-house built in 1801 and transformed in the 1880s by Sir Cunliffe Brooks, who added the present baronial trimmings. Preserved at the Castle is the Formaston Stone dating from between A.D. 800 and A.D. 1000, which shows the mirror symbol, part of an elaborately designed Celtic cross, and an inscription in Ogham.

Nearby cities: Aberdeen

Nearby towns: Ballater, Banchory, Huntly

Nearby villages: Aberdeen, Auchinhove, Ballaterach, Ballogie, Bankhead, Birse, Coldstone, Comers, Corsindae, Coull, Dinnet, Finzean, Kildrummy, Leochel-Cushnie, Lumphanan, Migvie, Ordie, Pannanich, Potarch, Strachan, Tarland, Tillyfour, Tillyfourie, Torphins, Tough, Towie

Have you decided to visit Aboyne or the surrounding villages? Please look above for somewhere to stay in:

• a Aboyne bed and breakfast (a Aboyne B&B or Aboyne b and b)
• a Aboyne guesthouse
• a Aboyne hotel (or motel)
• a Aboyne self-catering establishment, or
• other Aboyne accommodation