- Type
- Castle
- Built
- 14th century
- Location
- Scotland, United Kingdom
- Coordinates
- 56.1088°, -4.9056°
History
The tower was most likely built by the Campbells of Lochawe in the closing decades of the 14th century, when they dominated this part of Argyll; excavation moved its dating from the 15th to the 14th century, and the name comes from the Gaelic carraig, a rock. James IV used the castle as a hunting lodge, and Mary, Queen of Scots, stayed here on 20 and 21 June 1563. When the 9th Earl of Argyll rose unsuccessfully against James VII in 1685, Captain Thomas Hamilton, commanding HMS Kingfisher, sent word that the castle was burnt out and its walls wrecked enough to make it useless to the Campbells. After that it was lived in only from time to time, stone was taken from the ruin for new houses in the Victorian period, and the castle eventually passed to the Murrays, Earls of Dunmore. Since 1988 private owners have been restoring the tower and making it habitable again.
What to see
The castle is privately owned and not open to visitors. The rectangular tower, about 20 by 12 m and up to 20 m high, with walls more than 2 m thick, stands on a rock at the edge of Loch Goil and was once protected from the land by a ditch and drawbridge; a smaller 17th-century building adjoins it. A curious detail is a small chimney built into a window recess. The building is listed in Category A, Scotland's highest grade, and is also a scheduled monument.
Wikipedia article Official website Wikidata Q32698
Popularity: articles about this site in 7 Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia language editions and others).