{"id":17317,"date":"2016-01-05T08:04:25","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T08:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=17317"},"modified":"2016-01-05T08:04:25","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T08:04:25","slug":"abergeldie-castle-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2016\/01\/05\/abergeldie-castle-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Abergeldie Castle: extreme riverbank erosion threatens a 16th Century castle in Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>Abergeldie Castle<\/h5>\n<p>The ongoing sequence of extreme rainfall events in western and northern Britain has brought a sequence of floods and landslides over the last month, causing high levels of damage to Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumbria and various parts of Scotland.\u00a0 The most recent event &#8211; heavy rainfall in northern and western Scotland yesterday &#8211; triggered high river levels on the, amongst others, the River Dee in Aberdeenshire. \u00a0 Located near to the royal Balmorral Estate, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Abergeldie_Castle\">Abergeldie Castle<\/a> is a magnificent four storey tower house built in about 1550 on the banks of the Dee, as shown in this aerial image from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hillview7\/7942794510\">Flickr<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_17320\" style=\"width: 646px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17320\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17320\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-1.jpg\" alt=\"Abergeldie Castle\" width=\"636\" height=\"473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-1.jpg 636w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-1-300x223.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 636px) 100vw, 636px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-17320\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abergeldie Castle via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hillview7\/7942794510\">Flickr<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>As the image shows, the castle is located close to but not immediately beside the banks of the Dee.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the very high river flows associated with the recent rainfall has triggered extensive erosion of the banks of this section of the Dee, and the castle is now at extreme risk of being lost.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2016\/jan\/04\/abergeldie-castle-queen-neighbour-balmoral-flee-floods\">The Guardian has provided a description of the situation<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Images of the rising flood show Abergeldie Castle, a Grade A-listed building, just a few feet from the water\u2019s edge, with parts of the estate reportedly being swept away.\u00a0 Baron Abergeldie, John Gordon, 76, and his wife sought refuge with their neighbour Gordon Fraser after deciding it was too dangerous to remain in their ancestral home in Aberdeenshire. He is now understood to have moved to another property on the estate.\u00a0 \u201cHe left the castle when the river was at its height. It swept the embankment away,\u201d <a class=\" u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dailyrecord.co.uk\/news\/scottish-news\/historic-castle-brink-disaster-new-7109700\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"in-body-link\">Fraser told the Scottish Daily Record<\/a>. \u201cIt moved a 60ft lump of ground and took a lot of big mature trees as well.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pressandjournal.co.uk\/fp\/news\/aberdeenshire\/795497\/abergeldie-castle-brink-fearsome-river-dee-closes\/\">Press and Journal <\/a>has this image of the state of the castle at present:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_17321\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-2-e1451980183580.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17321\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17321\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-2-e1451980183580.jpg\" alt=\"Abergeldie Castle\" width=\"640\" height=\"481\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-17321\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abergeldie Castle via the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pressandjournal.co.uk\/fp\/news\/aberdeenshire\/795497\/abergeldie-castle-brink-fearsome-river-dee-closes\/\"> Press and Journal<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, Aberdeenshire has a yellow warning for rain today, and a further one for Thursday, when another <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/weather\/2635167\">band of heavy rainfall will sweep across Britain<\/a>:<\/p>\n<dl id=\"attachment_17324\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 456px;\">\n<dt class=\"wp-caption-dt\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17324\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-3.jpg\" alt=\"Abergeldie Castle\" width=\"446\" height=\"545\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-3.jpg 446w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2016\/01\/16_01-Abergeldie-3-246x300.jpg 246w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 446px) 100vw, 446px\" \/><\/a>Weather forecast for Abergeldie Castle, via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/weather\/2635167\">the BBC<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Scotland, extreme rainfall has induced riverbank erosion that has left the 16th Abergeldie Castle at risk of imminent collapse.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":17321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[144,469,177,228,133],"class_list":["post-17317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","tag-europe","tag-featured","tag-riverbank-erosion","tag-scotland","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}