Pink Again!
Donate todayCan you help us protect and restore Craigievar’s historic pink walls?
Craigievar Castle is iconic.
Its famous pink walls and many turrets make it the classic fairytale castle – it was even said to inspire Walt Disney’s Cinderella Castle.
However, Craigievar is being challenged by an insidious threat: the Scottish rain! Over the next year, we’ll be undertaking high-level masonry works to keep Craigievar watertight, as well as adding small and discrete adaptations to the roof which will future-proof the castle against the wetter winters we’re expecting as a result of climate change.
We’ll then finish the works with a full coat of tinted limewash, to ensure that Craigievar becomes pink again.
As a charity, we rely on voluntary donations to protect special places across Scotland. With your help, we can protect Aberdeenshire’s fairytale castle for generations to come.
Please if you can, donate today and help us make Craigievar pink again.
A gift from you will help us:
- Put up and maintain the scaffolding
It may not seem very glamourous but gaining high-level access to the castle is one of the most crucial stages of the work. We’ll be putting up free-standing scaffolding to prevent any damage to the stonework, which will take three months to erect.
Did you know?
It costs £222,000 to use free-standing, high-level scaffolding for a year.
Donate today- Repair the harling
Harling is the traditional Scottish protective layer applied to buildings to keep the rain away from the stonework. It is made from a mix of lime, aggregate and water, and is applied by hand. We’ll be repairing sections of this protective layer, which keeps the walls watertight and ensures that rain can’t make its way inside the castle and destroy Craigievar’s delicate interiors and collections.
- Make Craigievar pink again!
We will reinvigorate the pink tones of Craigievar’s walls with multiple coats of a ‘special recipe’ of limewash. Not only will this renew the castle’s famous pink walls, but it will also protect the harling.
- Adapt Craigievar to withstand the climate crisis
As the climate crisis intensifies, we’re anticipating much wetter winters, and castles built many centuries ago are just not suited to shed even the levels of rainwater we currently experience. That’s why we’ll be carrying out discreet adaptations to details, to better protect the vulnerable edges of the harling. This will help the castle shed more water, protect the harling and ensure that the castle remains watertight. This work will also mean that we need to refresh the harling less frequently.
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