Nicholas Bogdan

"An Archaeologist with a passion for castles"

Nicholas Quentin Bogdan:
archaeologist and architectural historian, born June 18 1947; died August 16 2002

Since 1995, Bogdan, and his partner Penny Dransart, of the University of Wales, Lampeter, have demonstrated through archaeological excavation and research that Fetternear is one of the more important medieval sites in the British Isles, with significant links to Hungary, Austria and Slovenia.

Fetternear includes the remains of a 14th-century palace, home of Bishop Alexander Kininmund who, in 1320, drafted the Declaration of Arbroath, the letter sent to Pope John XXII in Avignon declaring that the Scots would never be subjected to English rule. It also incorporates the remains of even earlier palaces and sites of settlement dating back 4,000 years.

After the Reformation in Scotland in 1560, Fetternear became the principal Scottish seat of the Leslies of Balquhain and Fetternear. It had been granted to the family as a reward for saving St Machar's cathedral, Aberdeen, from destruction. In the 17th century, the family became successful mercenaries, acquiring through might, diplomacy and marriage a string of properties in central and eastern Europe. Their strong Catholic faith helped sustain Fetternear as a centre of recusancy, as evidenced by a religious plaque carrying IHS and MRA monograms set into the facade of the existing 17th-century palace, now only a shell. Given Leslie links with central Europe, it is significant that the combination of monograms, extremely rare in Scotland, is characteristically used in the Alps.

[Source: The Guardian]