01 / The documented castle
A house assembled across the centuries
Ethie’s shape reflects a long history of adaptation. Historic Environment Scotland describes a large building developed from a fifteenth-century tower house, with remodelling and extensions in the sixteenth century. Sir Robert Rowand Anderson carried out further alterations in 1892. The castle has Category A listed status, recognising the importance of the surviving building.
That sequence helps when looking at the exterior. A steep roof meets a gable; a small turret rises above the garden entrance; windows and chimneys interrupt the red masonry. The photograph shown here records the house in August 2021. It offers a useful first impression of a place that grew through successive changes, while leaving the age of individual visible features to a closer architectural study.
The earliest tower is only one chapter of Ethie’s story. Later residents adapted an inherited building to their own lives. Keep that changing household in mind when following traditions attached to its rooms and stairs.
02 / A powerful historical resident
The cardinal whose name stayed with the house
Cardinal David Beaton lived at Ethie, a connection recorded in the official listing. His career reached far beyond this quiet corner of Angus. He became Abbot of Arbroath, Archbishop of St Andrews and Chancellor of Scotland, combining religious authority with considerable political power during the upheavals preceding the Reformation.
Historic Environment Scotland’s biography also places Marion Ogilvy within his life: their relationship lasted around two decades and they had eight children. That domestic history gives another dimension to a man often encountered chiefly through accounts of religious conflict. At Ethie, his remembered presence belongs to a house as well as to the national story.
In March 1546, the Protestant preacher George Wishart was burned at St Andrews at Beaton’s instigation. On 29 May that year, Beaton was murdered at St Andrews Castle. His death occurred there, rather than at Ethie. The distinction matters when a later haunting tradition brings his footsteps back to this Angus residence.
03 / Family history and literary echoes
From the Carnegies to an imagined Knockwinnock
William Fraser’s nineteenth-century family history records Robert Carnegie of Kinnaird acquiring the lands of Ethie through a charter dated 13 February 1549. The subsequent Carnegie connection gave the house another substantial chapter.
One family figure, William Carnegie, seventh Earl of Northesk, appears in Royal Museums Greenwich’s naval archive. During the Nore Mutiny of 1797, he carried the sailors’ demands to London and later resigned his command when a settlement proved impossible. He returned to service and, in 1805, joined Nelson’s fleet as a rear-admiral. At Trafalgar he was the third most senior admiral, his flag flying in HMS Britannia.
Ethie also acquired a literary association. Writing in 1913, Charles S. Olcott noted that local writers generally identified it with Knockwinnock, the fictional house in Walter Scott’s The Antiquary. Olcott visited and described the grounds himself. His account preserves that identification as a local tradition; it does not establish every feature of the fictional house as a direct copy of Ethie.
Sources for this section · 3
- William Fraser — History of the Carnegies, Earls of Southesk, and of their kindred, volume I (1867), introduction pp.lxxvii–lxxx (opens in a new tab)
- Royal Museums Greenwich — Letters relating to the Nore Mutiny; biographical history of William Carnegie (opens in a new tab)
- Charles S. Olcott — The Country of Sir Walter Scott (1913), chapter X, pp.154–155 (opens in a new tab)
04 / An early printed haunting account
The measured footstep on the stone stair
In 1867, Fraser described a tradition of deliberate footsteps moving up and down an old stone stair at Ethie. The sound was attributed to Cardinal Beaton. His account connects the stair with a long-unoccupied attic room, kept locked, where the cardinal was said to move about at night.
Fraser distinguished the reported haunting from something he had personally done. With Lord Northesk’s permission, he explored the room. He described a large carved oak cabinet as its only furniture, with its back forming part of the side of the staircase. He did not say that he heard the footsteps himself during that visit.
The passage places the tradition in print by 1867. Its architecture is specific enough to picture where the sound was heard, although the original listeners and dates remain unnamed. It preserves a remembered disturbance and the identity assigned to it, with the cause still open to examination.
05 / The child and the cart
A single wheel that answered the story
Horace Pym included another Ethie tradition in Chats in the Book-Room, published in 1896. Its opening concerns an unnamed child’s death. A room was subsequently shut away, and people in the rooms above and below were said to hear small footsteps and a wooden toy cart whose wheel made a distinctive creaking sound.
In Pym’s telling, a later Lord Northesk opened the room with members of his family. Apart from ashes in the hearth, it was empty except for a small wooden cart with four solid wheels. He asked his daughter to wheel it across the floor. One wheel creaked, apparently matching the noise described in the haunting. The disturbances were said to cease afterwards.
Pym had visited Ethie, but presented this episode as a story he had permission to repeat. He did not claim to witness the sounds. His version contains no human remains or burial, an important difference from later accounts.
Sources for this section · 1
06 / How the stories developed
A changing ending, and a lady without a name
Folklore researcher Keith Coleman revisited Ethie’s stories in January 2026, setting earlier texts beside later retellings. The child’s story acquired additional details over time, including the discovery of bones. The current castle website tells a version involving a hidden room, a skeleton and a subsequent burial. No excavation record was located for this guide, so that episode remains part of the reported tradition.
The lady associated with the house also changes between accounts. Coleman describes a Green Lady linked with a death omen in the Carnegie family; the operator calls its figure the Grey Lady and places her near the walled garden. Neither account establishes a securely identified historical woman behind the apparition.
These differences make following the sources rewarding. A colour, a room or an ending can shift while the central image survives. Keep the versions attached to their tellers: the patient footsteps, the child’s cart and the silent woman each carry their own history of being remembered.
07 / Planning a visit
Make arrangements before taking the castle road
Checked on 15 September 2026, Ethie’s official contact page presents the castle as a boutique venue for stays, family gatherings, retreats and weddings. It advertises a minimum stay of three nights, with arrangements ranging from partly catered stays to exclusive use. These are the published accommodation terms; they do not establish a general right to tour the house or gardens.
Contact the operator before building a day visit around Ethie. Ask whether your intended visit can be accommodated, which spaces would be included and how arrival should be arranged. If steps, walking surfaces or bathroom access affect your plans, explain your needs when enquiring. The information reviewed did not provide a detailed public access guide or regular visitor timetable.
The published contact is hello@ethiecastle.com or +44 1241 830434, with the address given as Ethie Castle, Inverkeilor, by Arbroath, Angus, DD11 5SP. Confirm arrangements directly and respect the privacy of residents and guests. An agreed visit leaves time to appreciate the house on its own terms.
Sources for this section · 1
Prepared for Scottish Paranormal / Haunted Scotland.
Sources and visitor information reviewed 15 September 2026.
