Blair Castle and Gardens - Group Tours
Located at the foot of the Cairngorms and with the magnificent five-star Blair Castle at our heart, Atholl Estates is one of Scotland’s best-known estates.
The estate offers a range of group tours and activities to enhance your travel itinerary at good value prices. These include guided tours of Blair Castle, tours of the castle's grounds and gardens, tours of the castle's attics and tractor and trailer tours of the estate.
Guided Castle Group Tour
Guided group tours of the castle are available free to groups of 12 or more, subject to availability on the day. Pre-booking is recommended and booked group tours are given priority. At busy times and in our high season, it is not always possible to provide dedicated guides, but we have guides available along the visitor route to answer questions during free-flow tours.
A guided group tour of the castle generally takes about 50 minutes. We recommend that you allocate at least 90 minutes for a visit to Blair Castle.
Group Tour Languages
As well as being available in English, our guided tours are usually available by arrangement in German and French, subject to demand on the day. Other languages may occasionally be offered. Room notes are provided in 10 languages including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Swedish, Japanese and Chinese.
Guidebooks
Fully illustrated guidebooks are available at £3.50 per copy in English, German, French and Italian, with a volume discount of £2 per copy if your group purchases 10 or more copies.
Special Interest Group Tours
The castle also offers special interest talks and tours tailored to the particular focus of your group e.g. Jacobite tours, Clan tours and needlework tours.
These tours are usually led by Castle Archivist Jane Anderson, who has specialist knowledge of the castle’s many records and artefacts. In February 2009, Jane put together a special group tour about curling for a visiting team from Canada. We are happy to tailor our guided tours to your group’s interests and always welcome enquiries.
You may wish to request a Groups and Travel Trade Guide or a Blair Castle leaflet. Please refer to the links here.
Guided Gardens Tour
Blair Castle’s stunning grounds and the spectacular walled Hercules’ Garden are the focal points of this 90-minute gardens tour.
The castle stands at the hub of a breathtaking historic landscape, most of which was laid out in the 18th century, and features a magnificent walled garden, a peaceful wooded grove, a ruined Celtic kirk, a red deer park and a whimsical gothic folly.
Hercules' Garden is a stunning walled garden recently restored to its original Georgian design and named after the life-sized statue of Hercules which overlooks it. The glory of this garden in summer is the 275-metre herbaceous border that runs the entire length of the south-facing wall.
A statue of Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting, stands at the centre of Diana’s Grove, a tranquil wooded area adjacent to the castle. It affords an exceptional opportunity to enjoy some of the country’s finest and tallest trees. The grove is home to A Grand Fir, which, standing at 62.70 metres, is now officially the UK’s second tallest tree.
The Gardens tour provides a fascinating insight into the history of the castle’s managed landscapes. Find out which Dukes had a hand in the early design of the gardens and who is responsible for more recent renovations and upkeep.
Admission: £1 per person (plus Grounds entry).
Minimum 12 people per tour, maximum 25 people per tour. Pre-booking is essential.
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