An Aberdeenshire castle which had been neglected for centuries has been reopened to the public.
Kindrochit Castle, in the heart of Braemar, has been at the centre of a £210,000 restoration project after being left to decay for hundreds of years.
Turning the 11th century ruin into a visitor attraction was one of the targets Aboyne, Upper Deeside and Donside councillor Geva Blackett was set when she became a member of Aberdeenshire Council.
She revealed: “What happened when I was elected years ago was my husband asked me to find out what the council was going to do about Kindrochit.
“It was just a heap of stone and overgrown nonsense.
“I went to the director of infrastructure services and asked who owned it and he came back and said ‘the council do’.
“He came out and had a look and realised the importance of it.
“We got funding from the Cairngorms National Park Authority and a huge amount from Aberdeenshire Council.
“It is quite an important site. When the work started there were local people who have lived in the village all their lives who said ‘we went to play on this as kids’.
“This is people who are now in their mid-40s, it has been a mess for a very long time, but it is all changed.
“It is never going to have a roof, but you have got something you can walk inside now and see the shape of the rooms.”
The conservation work was carried out by Tarland-based Urquhart Stonemasonry.
Councillor Blackett added: “It was a ruin and they have taken it back to excavate all the walls, you walk around it all inside. It is incredible, it has come back from latterly a pile of rubble to a historic site.
“We suspect it was much bigger than this, they have managed to excavate only a small part of it.
“It is a big part of the village. It is going way, way back into the history of the village, and here it is clean and tidy for people to come and look around and learn.”
Visitors can now walk through the castle on newly constructed pathways and read about the history of the site.