[2] One of the principal seats of the Mormaers who controlled Buchan,[3] the motte was used by Alexander Comyn as the prime centre to carry out legal affairs.

[1] After Robert the Bruce defeated Comyn's son, John, at the Battle of Barra on 24 December 1307, there followed the Harrying of Buchan and Ellon was destroyed by fire;[1] the earthen mound survived until it was flattened at the start of the 19th century.

[5] The downfall of the Comyns saw the ownership of the lands returned to the Crown which held them until gifted to Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan by Robert II of Scotland.

[7] Kennedy – sometimes spelt as Kynidy – had been appointed as hereditary Constable of Aberdeen by the Duke of Albany in appreciation for his actions during the Battle of Harlaw.

After Gordon's death in 1873, the house passed to his son George, a retired diplomat, who lived there with his German wife Emy until moving to the continent in the 1880s.