Bob Dylan has sold his 16-bedroom Highland retreat for over £4 million.
The 82-year-old American singer-songwriter, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, put Aultmore House on the market earlier this year.
Nestled in the heart of the Highlands in The Cairngorms National Park close to the village of Nethy Bridge, the mansion was acquired by Dylan with his younger brother David Zimmerman in 2006 for around £2.2 million.
The house and grounds, as well as the gatehouse, have a Grade A-listing with Historic Environment Scotland. It is regarded by some as one of the finest houses in Scotland.
READ MORE: Peek inside 'one of the most magnificent' homes in Glasgow
Dylan - born Robert Allen Zimmerman - is said to have visited Aultmore House with his brother for a few weeks every year until the mid to late 2010s.
According to records filed last week, the property has been purchased by whisky firm Angus Dundee Distillers, which owns and operates two distilleries, Tomintoul and Glencadam, and produces a wide range of award-winning single malt and blended whiskies.
Angus Dundee Distillers has reportedly paid £4.25 million for the 18,357-square-foot mansion, which boasts a tree-lined driveway, 11 bathrooms, four reception rooms - including a music room, three kitchens and a coal cellar, as well as a total of 25 acres of landscaped grounds.
The property has also been available as a wedding venue and was featured in the BBC series Monarch of the Glen.
Aultmore House was originally built for the owner of a Moscow department store between 1911 and 1914, but was sold in 1922 after the owner passed away.
It was then purchased by the Nivinson family, who owned Aultmore for over 50 years. While it was a convalescent home during the Second World War, it remained in the family until 1978.
It was also used as a finishing school for foreign students and a bed and breakfast for holidaymakers before it was acquired by Dylan.
Tom Stewart-Moore, Head of Rural Agency for Scotland for estate agents Knight Frank, who sold the house, commented: “I am pleased to share that Aultmore House, which was launched to the market in July, has now been sold to its new custodians, who will usher this magnificent home into its next chapter.”
READ MORE: Scots beach makes top 10 in global list of 'most exotic to visit once in your life’
In the decades since he first burst into the public's consciousness via New York City's Greenwich Village folk music scene in the early 1960s, Dylan has sold over 145 million albums, performed over 3,000 shows and won 10 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Hailed as the Shakespeare of his generation, his classic songs include Like a Rolling Stone, Mr Tambourine Man, Subterranean Homesick Blues and The Times They Are A-Changin’.
The singer-songwriter has a strong affinity to Scotland, with Dylan revealing in 2008 that ‘A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns’ was the lyric or verse that had the greatest impact on his life.
'Highlands’, a song on his 30th studio album Time Out of Mind, is also believed to have been inspired by Burns’ ‘My Heart's in the Highlands’.
His first eponymous album, released in 1962, also included the song Pretty Pegg-O, based on The Bonny Lass O’ Fyvie, while Girl of the North Country, on 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan has the loose melody from the Scottish tune Cambric Shirt.
In 2004, the singer-songwriter accepted an honorary degree, Doctor of Music, from St Andrews University. Dylan’s biographer Michael Gray believed that it was “a way of recognising the importance of Scottish culture in his work”.
Speaking at the time, Dr Brian Lang, former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews, said: ''Bob Dylan is an iconic figure for the twentieth century, particularly for those of us whose formative years were the 1960s and 70s.
''His songs, and in particular his lyrics, are still part of our consciousness."
That same year, Dylan, in a rare interview about his song-writing, admitted that his song The Times They Are A-Changin’ was inspired by an old Scottish folk song - probably Hamish Henderson’s The 51st (Highland) Division’s Farewell To Sicily.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here