BALMORAL Castle must be the hoose most in the news this year. The Queen’s death there last month put the joint on televisions all over the world. It was the first time a British monarch had died in Scotland since James V in 1542. So, well done, Your Maj.

Her granddaughter Princess Eugenie once said the Queen had been “most happy there,” adding: “I think she really, really loves the Highlands.” Aye, well.

When the coffin left Balmoral for its journey south, viewers were stunned by the beauty of the Aberdeenshire countryside, seen from the air all green and rolling.

Balmoral itself is a working estate, with forestry, farmland, and moors where toffs test themselves in battle against the mighty grouse. There are also deer, Highland cattle, sheep and ponies stoatin’ aboot.

Set within the Cairngorms National Park on the banks of the River Dee, Balmoral is near the village of Crathie, nine miles west of Ballater and 50 miles west of Aberdeen.

Bit of history: Robert II had a hunting lodge in the area, and there are records of a house built by a Sir William Drummond in 1390. The estate was later tenanted by some Gordons before passing to some Farquharsons who, as Jacobites, had their lands taken off them in 1746 and given to some other, more reliable Farquharsons.

It was Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, who started the royal love-affair with Balmoral. Victoria and her man first visited Scotland in 1842, just five years after she came to the throne. They kinda liked it and, in 1848, Albert acquired part of the lease on Balmoral, complete with furniture and staff, without having seen the property, not even online.

The hoose then was not the “castle” of today. Victoria found it “small but pretty”. Her diary records: "All seemed to breathe freedom and peace, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.” The surrounding landscape reminded Albert of his native Germany.

In 1852, he bought the estate for Victoria, forking out £32,000, about £3.7 million in today’s money, or enough for a one-bedroom flat in Stockbridge. Albert also bought the neighbouring estate of Birkhall and acquired the lease on Abergeldie Castle, because they’d a lot of stuff and needed the storage.

The house, however, was still too wee for them, so the current Balmoral was commissioned, with construction completed in 1856, on a site with better vistas 100 yards north-west of the original building.

Built from granite quarried at Invergelder, the style is Scottish baronial, though some thought it a bit German. Pictures from the 1860s show it lighter in hue than today, almost white, and all the more attractive for that. A recent Tripadvisor reviewer said: “The castle … environ is quite barren so it appears quite harsh as stonework does to many similar Scottish castles. It probably mirrors the climate and it does not embrace or endear you with its lack of warmth. The gardens are quite sparse and are not like an English country garden …” Ouchy!

Still, back in the day, the fact of the royals buying a Scottish estate and erecting a Caledonian-style gaff helped in the contrived revival of an ersatz Highland culture, cementing Scotland into Britain, where it remains stuck today.

It was a place where a Queen could freely twang the elastic on her drawers and stravaig forth into the wild, knowing that she owned it. Victoria spent up to four hours a day just stoatin’ aboot, while Albert got on with killing things for pleasure. After his own death in 1861, Victoria spent more and more time at Balmoral, relying greatly on her servant, John Brown, a local ghillie, who became her closest, er, companion.

Victoria last visited the estate three months before her death on 22 January 1901. Our most recent female monarch also stayed at Balmoral every summer, enjoying the peace away from current affairs, though inviting prime ministers for a weekend visit every year, something that Margaret Thatcher described as “purgatory”. Turning up in high heels, she had to borrow wellies in order to tag along unhappily on royal yomping trips.

Tony Blair described weekends among the draughty corridors as “utterly freaky”. Preprandial drinks, he recalled, had the strength of “rocket fuel”. In an unrelated development, he and wife Cherie conceived a son there.

Other activities included charades, adding fuel to Lady Thatcher’s “purgatory” claims, and eating sausages cooked by Prince Philip on a barbecue while midges took bites out of you.

Added to by successive royals, the area now covers 50,000 acres, so the grass takes some cutting. The estate employs around 50 full-time and 50–100 part-time staff

There are about 150 buildings, including holiday cottages, with the estate website pointing out that guests can get deliveries from Asda. Business opportunity for Asda: an extra 100 quid gets the van covered in Waitrose livery.

Balmoral is private property, incidentally. Unlike the monarch's official residences, it’s not the property of the Crown. As it was originally bought privately, no revenues from the estate go to the public purse.

Since the Queen’s death, admission fees (open Wed, Sat and Sun in November) have been waived for now so that folk might pay their respects with a wee waddle round the grounds. The castle itself remains closed as a mark of respect, though visitors were only allowed to see the ballroom at the best of times.

Admission is normally £15 and another £5 to park in a field. One Tripadvisor review says it’s “too much for a walk in the grounds”. Admission “with cake experience” is normally £23.50 or, for the truly unhinged, £37.50 with afternoon tea. Otherwise, reviewers report food availability limited and time-barred in the authentic Scotch tradition of crap hospitality.

If you’ve any spare change, the gift shop sells Harris tweed sporrans for £120.00. These boast three matching tassels.

Reports suggest that, following his much loved mother’s death, King Charles – whose signed print of Balmoral fetched nearly 6 grand at auction this week – has been thinking of turning the house into a museum. Meanwhile, he’s been strewing patchwork coloured cushions around the place willy-nilly. You just wonder how long he’d been planning to do that.