Knock Castle, Aberdeenshire

It sits on a knoll in a field on the south side of Craig of the Knock, a low hill at the entrance to Glen Muick.

The entrance opened on to the north side of the surrounding courtyard, and would have been protected by a strong wooden door and an iron yett.

A feud between the neighbouring Clan Forbes intensified when Henry Gordon 2nd Laird of Knock was murdered during a cattle raid by the Forbes and Clan Chattan men in 1592, his brother Alexander Gordon succeeded Henry and may have rebuilt or remodelled Knock Castle during his time there.

It is said that one day Alexander Gordon sent his seven sons out to cut peat for the winter store but while the brothers were working they didn’t notice that they had strayed onto the Neighbouring Clan Forbes lands, when after several hours cutting they were discovered by Forbes and his men a battle ensued by the end of which all the brothers had been killed, after the fight the Forbes decided to make an example of the Gordon boys by severing all the heads of the brothers bodies and impaling them on the upright handles of their peat spades.

After a while the Gordon Laird began to become concerned about the whereabouts of his sons so he sent out one of his servants to look for the boys and give them a meal, when the servant discovered the boys’ heads all placed all in a neat row on the upright spades he almost passed out with shock he ran back to Knock Castle as fast as he could with the news of what had happened to the Lairds' seven sons, Alexander was at the top of the castle’s turnpike stair when the servant burst in the castle door shouting the news of the boys terrible fate, on hearing of the fate of his beloved sons Alexander collapsed at the top of the stair and tumbled all the way down to his death.