To be strict, neither Sandend nor Fordyce, both very picturesque villages, are within the borders of Buchan, the inland border of which is marked by the River Deveron a few miles to the east, but they are close by.
Sandend stands at the western edge of a beautiful sandy bay. About a mile to the west, the ruins of Findlater Castle rise almost organically from the spit of rock upon which it was founded. A mile south of Sandend there is the fairy-tale village of Fordyce, clustered round its little castle, a jewel almost lost in the gently rolling fields that surround it.