Martin worked with the local architect Douglas Forrest to convert the house into fourteen individual dwellings, retaining much of the original interior of the building.

These probably incorporated some of the stonework of an earlier medieval building on the site, known as Inverculain, which is mentioned in records of 1264,[6][7] and is thought to have been home to Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, the mother of Robert the Bruce.

[8][9] On 20 March 1600, building upon some of the structure of the canons' lodgings, work was started on a large new L-plan tower house for the laird, Sir Walter Ogilvy, and his wife Dame Margaret Drummond.

James Ogilvy, 5th Earl of Findlater had travelled with his wife to Aberdeen to meet the Duke of Cumberland who was pursuing the Jacobite Army led by Charles Edward Stuart.

In their absence, a group of Stuart's supporters forced their way into the house on 8 April 1746 and ransacked it, carrying off as much as possible and destroying what could not be easily transported.

There were walled courts lined with flower borders, roses and fruit trees, and a classical arrangement of rectangular plots laid out symmetrically on either side of an avenue.

[6] Between 1820 and 1830, Ludovick Ogilvy-Grant, 5th Earl of Seafield extended the gardens considerably by demolishing the entire village of Cullen, and building a new planned town for its inhabitants, laid out by George MacWilliam with alterations by Peter Brown and William Robertson, nearer the coast.

[18] The house's current baronial revival appearance is largely the result of the extensive remodelling that was carried out from 1858 to 1868 by David Bryce, who worked to homogenise the disparate styles of the different parts of the building, and redesigned much of the interior.

[1] Renovation work was carried out on the house in 1913 by Robert Lorimer,[11] and in 1915 it was inherited by Nina Ogilvie-Grant-Studley-Herbert, the 12th Countess of Seafield, who later gained a reputation as the wealthiest woman in Britain after Queen Elizabeth II.

He and the local architect Douglas Forrest set about repairing and restoring the structure, and together they converted it into fourteen separate private homes.

[27] Firefighters fought to contain the blaze, and although they managed to put it out within three hours, severe damage was caused to the south-east corner and the west wing.

Specialist joiners and plasterers were brought in to work on the interiors, but some of the building's internal features including an early seventeenth-century painted ceiling in the second salon were irreparably damaged.

[1] The seventeenth-century L-plan tower house, which itself incorporated stonework from earlier buildings on the site, has been extended by the addition of wings to the north and south.

Above are two tourelles supported by corbels, one of which bears the initials SVO and DMD, representing Sir Walter Ogilvy and his wife, Dame Margaret Drummond, for whom the house was built.

At the west end, there is another extension, also baronialized in the nineteenth century, with more tourelles, a round staircase tower, and carvings of Father Time holding a scythe and flanked by figures representing Youth and Old Age.

To the left side of the east facade is the rear of the original tower house, which has an early seventeenth-century tourelle, and another dormer head featuring a carved sun.

Left of this is a section of five bays, which is part of the eighteenth-century building work and has been little altered since, save for the addition of a single tourelle, and an elaborate staircase tower which can be seen prominently from the gorge below and is known as the Punch Bowl.

Built in the late eighteenth century, it originally housed the kitchen and laundry, and has been converted into six apartments and an architectural studio.

[6][23] Beyond this is a two-storey stair hall, with a staircase and ceiling, both by James Adam, and an elaborately carved wooden door, dated 1618, with its original key and lock.

A grand Jacobean painted ceiling, depicting the siege of Troy and bearing the royal arms of Scotland (suggesting that it predated the 1603 Union of the Crowns),[9] was destroyed by the fire.

[1][6] On a hilltop at the north end of the grounds there is a garden feature in the form of a Grecian temple pavilion made of polished ashlar.

An open rotunda with a leaded roof and a plasterwork ceiling is supported by eight Ionic columns, which sit atop the walls of a round basement tearoom.