Cairness House

The second laird, Major-General Thomas Gordon (1788–1841), a good friend of Lord Byron, was a hero of the Greek War of Independence and wrote a celebrated history of the conflict.

During the Second World War, the house was rented to the Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Company of Fraserburgh as evacuation premises for their London head office.

[5] Considered one of the finest examples of Neoclassical architecture in Britain, Cairness House shows the influence of the French architects Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude Nicholas Ledoux and has many parallels with the works of Sir John Soane.

Constructed in finely detailed granite ashlar, Cairness House consists of a 110-foot (34 m) main block, flanked by two raised "bookend" wings.

A tetrastyle pedimented Roman Doric porch sits at the centre, its unjointed columns hewn from menhirs taken from a nearby druids' stone circle.

From these pavilions extends a huge semicircular service wing, with a central bell tower above a lunette arch, enclosing a courtyard at the rear of the house.

The interiors are boldly neoclassical with fine examples of simulated marble walls, pendentive or coffered ceilings and Greek key friezes.