The ruins of Findlater Castle cap the headland like a broken crown – the 15th-century stones half covered by grass and gorse bushes – while the North Sea swirls 50ft below.
This is Clan Ogilvy’s long-abandoned family seat, but seabirds reign over the place now. As I make the heart-quickening scramble across from the mainland, a jangling tune rises above the lashing waves: a solitary bagpiper is playing beside the crumbling fortifications. It’s the stuff of Outlander-fuelled dreams. And incredibly, aside from the musician and his wife (Americans retracing some distant family heritage, it turns out), I have the scene all to myself – even on a sunny spring weekend, when the sky’s as blue as the St Andrew’s flag.
