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History 

Parts of the castle and the beautiful painted ceilings were completed by the younger Alexander Burnet in 1602.  He also set about building Muchalls Castle at Stonehaven but died before its completion.  His great-great-grandson Thomas Burnett carried out the one major alteration of the castle at the beginning of the 18th century. 

To accommodate his 21 children and to provide more elegant surroundings he restored the Queen Ann Wing and planted the beginnings of today's remarkable gardens.  However, the work used all the family fortune and his heirs had to sell Muchalls Castle to cover his debts.  The side wing meant that the castle was not as defendable as a single tower would have been.  

By the mid-16th century the threat of attack did not come so much from well equipped armies but from small groups of marauders.  The immense pink-harled granite tower is an elegant building with plain lower storeys topped by turrets, gabling ,heraldic carvings and chimneys. 

In 1952 the Burnett family gave the castle to the National Trust for Scotland.  A fire destroyed the Queen Ann Wing in 1966 but the L-plan tower escaped serious damage.  The wing has been rebuilt by the Trust  in its original plan of two storeys.  The gardens were begun at the beginning of the 20th century by Sir James and Lady Burnett using the original  the 18th century gardens as a framework.