The Castle of Mey in Scotland, Beloved by the Queen Mum and King Charles III
King Charles III has concluded his annual visit to the Castle of Mey on the northern coast of Scotland. For some five decades it was the remote retreat of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Since her death in 2002, Charles has spent the first week of every August there honoring her birthday on the 4th and carrying out royal engagements as well as finding solace in personal pursuits.
This year was his first stay as monarch, and he was seen publicly at two events: the opening of the 8 Doors distillery and the Mey Highland Games, where he sipped whisky from his favorite snifter and awarded a trophy to the winners of the tug-of-war contest honoring his coronation. Otherwise, he remained out of sight.
His habit during these visits has been to spend his mornings reading documents and to set aside some afternoons for fishing on the Thurso, Helmsdale, or Laxford rivers. He has been known to take the wheel of his Range Rover and drive as long as three hours to reach a coveted beat. Along the way, he would occasionally pause to roll down the window and chat with a farmer leading a herd of cows. On some years he has spent an entire afternoon on the deserted island of Stroma three miles offshore, watching the birds and the tides, and making sketches in red ink to be completed as watercolor paintings later.
The spirit of the Queen Mum is very much alive at the Castle of Mey, as I discovered when I spent a night there in 2009, accompanied by my friend Jane FitzGerald. Her grandmother, Victoria “Tortor” Gilmour, had been close to the Queen Mother since they were girls. Tortor’s grandfather was the fifth Earl Cadogan, and her four older sisters were known as “the Cadogan Square.”
The Castle of Mey was the only home owned outright by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. She found it while grieving over the premature death of her husband, King George VI, at age 56 in February 1952, when she visited her close friends, Commander Clare Vyner and his wife Lady Doris, at their Scottish coastal home, The House of the Northern Gate, in Caithness.
Nearby was a small run-down castle behind a grove of trees twisted and stunted from the persistent gales, with a panoramic view of the Orkney Islands. “How sad it looks,” she said, “just like me.” “It was very flat and desolate,” Elizabeth’s first cousin, Margaret Rhodes, told me. “But it was a lifesaver for her.” On impulse, Elizabeth bought it for a token £100, and her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, funded an extensive renovation that included the installation of bathrooms and electricity.
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