Scottish medieval castles tend to stand alone in commanding positions, masters of all that their lairds surveyed. By contrast, Fordyce Castle in Banffshire stands in a village surrounded by houses, not unlike a fortified manoir or chateau in France.

Today, after a thorough overhaul, Fordyce is up for sale, together with the castle’s barony title, which is also unusual.

The castle and village, four miles from the Moray Firth coast, have avoided the worst excesses of both Victorian and late 20th-century development — which was what attracted Bob and Fiona Crabbe to Fordyce in the first place.

Now restored, the castle is on sale at offers over £800,000, and comes with the option of a four- and five-star self-catering holiday letting business, which has a potential combined income of £1,100 a week in the high season.

Thomas Menzies, former lord provost of Aberdeen, built the pocket-sized castle in 1592. In castle-speak it is a “three-storey L-plan tower house with corbelled stair tower”, and is well supplied with shot holes through which to fire upon besieging enemies.

The Menzies family married into the Ogilivie-Grants, who became Earls of Seafield. They were substantial landowners, and Fordyce gradually became one of their less important properties.

The castle was bought about 40 years ago in a state of dilapidation by a Portuguese acquaintance of the eccentric Count Mirrlees of the Mirrlees Blackstone diesel family. Mirrlees had himself consolidated the ruins of nearby Inchdrewer in atonement for his family’s murder of the original occupants 400 years go. With his encouragement, its Portuguese laird made Fordyce windproof and watertight, but eventually sold it to a German.

The new owner, who seldom visited, was thought to have bought it merely for the barony title. Most of these territorial titles, peculiar to Scotland, have been flogged off without the property by financially embarrassed nobility for anything between £45,000 and £100,000.

The Crabbes, who ran Morgan McVeighs, a successful restaurant and shop on the A96, near Huntly, had had their eye on Fordyce for some time. Bob is an architect who went into property and retailing.

“I had seen it when I was up on business, and made contact with the owner, but nothing happened,” he says. “Then, out of the blue, he phoned one day and we bought it over the phone in two minutes.” The Crabbes paid £200,000, and completed the restoration in 2000.

The castle was A-listed inside and out, so the Crabbes had to work closely with Historic Scotland. Not a stone or slate could be moved, poked or prodded without permission.

Fordyce now has underfloor heating in the ground-floor vaulted kitchen and dining room, which has a separate door on to the village square, and has been a temporary village jail within living memory.

An elderly woman who came into Morgan McVeigh’s told Crabbe that when she was a child, Saturday-night drunks were slung into the low-vaulted room by the local bobby, then let out on the Sunday morning by the minister and marched off to kirk.

The restoration revealed that the adjoining west wing, always thought to have been a 17th- century addition, was the same age as the castle. “I uncovered a shot hole — there are a huge number all over the castle — on the ground floor of the wing,” says Crabbe. That made it the same age as the castle. The roof was raised later on and a first floor was added in the 17th century.”

The first-floor great hall of the castle, which was divided into two rooms when the Crabbes bought it, is now back to its original state, and the huge walk-in fireplace has been opened up.

Fordyce has four bedrooms — two with corner turrets — and two bathrooms.

The self-contained wing, which has another two bedrooms and bathrooms, is reached either through the main castle or, when it is being let — it currently has five-star holiday cottage status — through the separate front door.

The Crabbes later bought the next-door two-bedroom cottage, which has french windows that open out on to a west-facing terrace. The cottage is rated as four-star holiday accommodation.

The Gallery, a stone building with huge open first- and ground-floor spaces at the back of the castle, was once two cottages and, as its name suggests, has been used as an art gallery. Planning permission permitting, it could be joined on to the castle and returned to living space.

Most of the furniture bought specifically for Fordyce is for sale with it.

The Crabbes, whose children have now left home, are moving to the west coast.

Savills, www.savills.co.uk , 01356 628 628

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