This Life Sarah And Will Leslie

A long and intriguing history has shaped Aberdeenshire’s Wardhill Castle, but its future is looking just as interesting, thanks to the young family who have made it their home

- Catherine Coyle

There is a family tree on the coffee table of Wardhill Castle’s library that has so many branches, it’s as tricky to decipher as the noble houses of Westeros. The tree belongs to the Leslies; Wardhill has been in their family since the 12th century, and just four years ago, ripe for refurbishment, it was passed on to William Leslie and his wife Sarah.

The castle hit the headlines last summer when Will’s younger sister Rose married there. She played Ygritte in Game of Thrones and her wedding at her childhood home, to co-star Kit Harington (aka Jon Snow), put the sleepy village of Meikle Wartle in rural Aberdeenshire on the map, with fans and paparazzi flocking there in the hope of glimpsing the celebrity guests.

Sarah acted as wedding planner, not only so the couple could relax in the knowledge that their celebration would be handled sensitively, but also so that she could put into practice her plans for the estate.

“Will and I met when we were both living and working in London – we were friends for a long time before we got together,” she says. She recalls him explaining that at some point, he would be asked to return to Aberdeenshire to take over the family home from his parents. Sarah, who is originally from Yorkshire, had no desire to raise children in the city, so the thought of settling in the Scottish countryside didn’t faze her. “We moved here in 2014 and had our son, Harry, a year later. At the same time, we’d begun refurbishing Wardhill Castle and looking at ways it could provide an income.”