BRAM STOKER AND SLAINS CASTLE

Bram Stoker wrote large parts of Dracula in the Scottish village of Cruden Bay. Now it just so happens that Cruden Bay can boast a gothic-looking castle that looks the part. This is Slains Castle, located in a dramatic cliff-top setting overlooking the North Sea. The connection has led to many uninformed comments that Slains Castle inspired Dracula. It didn’t.

Bram Stoker’s notes for Dracula have survived and the earliest are dated from 1890.[1] The plot is outlined in the notes and already at this stage the author has identified a castle location as part of the story. He was planning a gothic horror story and a castle is almost obligatory in these tales; it was castle in the abstract and I would bet he didn’t have any specific castle in mind. This was three years before he ever set foot in Cruden Bay.

Nevertheless, it took years for Bram Stoker to get around to actually writing his famous novel and when he did he was in Cruden Bay. It’s no coincidence, I would argue, that the description of Castle Dracula in the novel resembles parts of the floor plan of Slains Castle. As pointed out by Margaret Aitken, the small octagonal room in the castle turns up in the novel.

Compare these two descriptions:

Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897:  ‘The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room, opened another door which led into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort.’

The 1922 sales document for Slains Castle: ‘On the Principle Floor: Entrance Hall (heated with stove) leading to Central Octagonal Interior Hall (heated with stove and lighted from above)...’

Slains Castle is now ruined (it wasn’t in Bram Stoker’s day) although the octagonal room has survived.

The Octagonal room in Slains Castle.

Bram Stoker was obviously impressed with Slains Castle as it appears in no less than six of his novels either as the castle itself (twice) or in disguised form. For instance, here is the description of Kyllion, the mansion where a spirit of ancient Egypt is revived in The Jewel of Seven Stars, the novel that inspired all the mummy movies: ‘A great grey stone mansion of the Jacobean period; vast and spacious, standing high over the sea on the very verge of a high cliff.’ And like Slains Castle, one could hear, ‘the crash and murmur of waves breaking against rock far below...’ No prizes for guessing this novel was also written in Cruden Bay.

The great shame is that nothing is being done with Slains Castle. There are plans to turn it into holiday homes but nothing has come to fruition yet. Meanwhile, it’s not even listed as a site of historical interest. Some obvious tourism potential exists here, especially when you see what has been done to promote the Bram Stoker connection in Whitby, not to mention Transylvania.



Slains Castle in its gorgeous setting  is highly photogenic as you can see....

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[1] Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula A Facsimile Edition Bram Stoker, annotated and Transcribed by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller. McFarland & Company. Jefferson, North Carolina and London.