A ghostly work of art is sending chills down visitors’ spines at its new home in a 13th-century Aberdeenshire visitor attraction.
Drum Castle is now displaying Ken Currie’s Gallowgate Lard – a haunting portrait in thick oil paint and beeswax synonymous with Aberdeen Art Gallery since 1997.
The 700-year old castle at Drumoak is one of several host venues for art work from the gallery, which will be closed until winter 2017 as it undergoes a £33million revamp.
The painting forms part of the wider “Human Presence” exhibition on the second floor of the historic structure – a section of the building never before opened to the public.
The gallery has been open since early April, however Gallowgate Lard has only just arrived.
Drum Castle manager, Alison Burke, said the spectral image fitted perfectly into the spooky surroundings of the building – where unexplained happenings often leave her unsettled.
Last year staff thought they had captured a ghost on camera when a National Trust for Scotland wildlife team snapped a mysterious blur while recording nesting swallows in the castle’s stables.
Miss Burke said: “Drum is very much the people’s castle, and I don’t like to think of the castle as haunted as I work here in the evenings, but there are sometimes some unexplained occurrences.
“Things like ladies’ laughter in the garden when there is no one there, servants’ bells suddenly ringing when there is no one upstairs and the temperature suddenly dropping in the green closet for no reason.
“But the oddest one was when I came in and found all the tankards had been swapped around on the dining room mantelpiece and categorically no one had been in the castle from when I had closed it the night before.
“I am not a superstitious person and always look for the reasonable explanation, but that had me completely flummoxed.
“Now that we have opened up the upper floor, we are curious to see if there are mysterious happenings up there as well.”
Drum Castle dates back to the 1200s and was the seat of the Irvine family – an Aberdeenshire clan who supported the Stuarts during the Jacobite rebellions.
The tower of neighbouring Crathes Castle is reputedly haunted by “the green lady” – an apparition often seen cradling an infant.
