Waterton Castle

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Waterton Castle is a ruined 17th-century tower house about 1 mile east of Ellon in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, north of the River Ythan. It was once connected to Kinloss Abbey and was later owned by the Knights Templar, then the Bannermans around 1560, and the Forbes family until at least 1770. The castle was probably built between 1630 and 1640. In 1652 the Kennedys of Kermuck killed John Forbes of Waterton. Today only the vaulted basement remains, about 4.4 by 3.9 metres, with walls about 0.7 metres thick and up to 3 metres high. A 1770 sketch shows a four-storey building with a central block and east and west wings that had crow-stepped gables. A carved plaque on the inner south wall reads: “This stone marks the site of the ancient seat of the family of Forbes, Lairds of Waterton A.D. 1630 - 1770.” In 1844 a drinking horn was found in the ruins, and in 1863 it was donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland.