Marc Floyd Ellington OStJ DL HonFRIAS (16 December 1945 – 17 February 2021) was an American-born British folk and folk-rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and bagpiper.
He recorded in Britain in the late 1960s and 1970s, and became active in conservation work in Scotland, restoring his home at Towie Barclay Castle, Aberdeenshire.
[6] He was described as "the first American to refuse his draft call publicly in Great Britain", and was pictured presenting his US Army induction papers to Canon John Collins in what he described as "a symbolic gesture in seeking the sanctuary of the Church".
[8] In the late 1960s, he and his wife Karen bought Towie Barclay Castle, near Turriff in Aberdeenshire, which had fallen into "a desperate state of disrepair".
There was ivy everywhere but we had a vision and we’ve stayed true to it, we were unlucky enough not to have pictures and plans of what the castle used to be like and the restoration process took us four years.
[12] Marc Ellington was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen in 2015 because of his conservation work, and was appointed the Deputy Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire on 26 October 1984, and a member of the Heritage Lottery Fund Committee for Scotland.
[1] In 2015, he led a project to erect a cairn to those from the Cabrach area who lost their lives during the First World War, which was inaugurated by the Prince of Wales.