A Tour of Scotland Through Its Castles

Qantas: The Australian Way

June 2013

Castles show Scotland at its best. It’s the variety: there are tumbling ruins on the edge of storm-thrown bays, rugged hilltop fortresses that have withstood centuries of battles and weather, and immaculate and functional palaces that still serve as homes to ancient families.

Better still, a tour of Scottish castles is a tour of Scotland itself, in all its diverse beauty. A trip to, say, 10 of Scotland’s most famous castles would combine cities, lowlands and highlands, lochs and islands, the east and the west, and a thousand years of history.

Edinburgh Castle, for example, is arguably the heart of the whole country, the capital city’s focal point both physically and historically. Castles like Eilean Donan, Duart and Dunvegan showcase the country’s glorious west coast and islands, while Cawdor and Glamis, famed from Macbeth, show the less visited east, and Caerlaverock the lowlands close to the English border.

And that’s just the start: Scotland has over 3,000 castles, one for every 100 square miles. It owes this love of fortification to a long history of invasion: the oldest surviving Scottish castles date from Norman invasions in the 11^th and 12^th centuries. And the Normans were not the first: Scots had previously had to fight Romans and Vikings, and until the 18^th century was pretty much always in conflict with the English.

Castles are also associated with the clan system in Scotland, in which each clan, or family, would have a castle within their lands.  Quite apart from foreign invasions, clans, too, have often gone to war, and many Scottish castles have changed hands over the years, often by force.

This military requirement also gave Scottish castles their magnificent locations. If one looks at, say, Duart castle on the Isle of Mull, perched on the edge of a cliff with water on three sides of it, then the appearance is stunningly beautiful. But it’s also practical, because to storm such a castle would be enormously difficult. Scottish castles are often on hilltops, cliffs, spurs of volcanic rock, or in one case on an island where three deep lochs meet.

An 800-mile round-trip from Edinburgh would cover 10 of Scotland’s best castles and geography, and there is no better place to start than the capital’s own fort, high up above the modern city and within sight of almost all of the town. It houses some of Scotland’s most treasured possessions, including the Honours of Scotland (the country’s crown jewels), the Stone of Destiny, upon which Kings of Scotland were historically enthroned, and the Scottish National War Museum. This magnificent place, over which wars and sieges have been fought as royalty lived within, is one of Scotland’s finest attractions (£16 adults, £9.60 children).

A two hour drive south to Dumfries brings you to Caerlaverock Castle, not far from the English border. It is in ruins – and all the more dramatically appealing for that – but the front of it is in good condition, with a twin-towered gatehouse and stocky battlements. The moat makes it still more imposing, and although the interior has long since crumbled (that’s what you get being so close to the English) the place still boasts a tearoom and a castle-themed adventure park nearby that makes it especially popular with children.

Two hours northwest we find the first of our east coast castles, Culzean. This is one of many with a powerful clifftop setting over water, in this case the Firth of Clyde. This place, linked to the Kennedy family since the 14^th century, is in very good shape, and its rooms and Robert Adam-designed art galleries can be toured from March to October; its 600 acres of gardens and woodland are open all year (indeed, many come for the country park as much as the castle).

After turning inland past Glasgow, then skirting beautiful Loch Lomond, it is time to leave the mainland and catch a ferry from Oban to the Isle of Mull and the incredible location of Duart Castle. Duart has guarded the Sound of Mull since at least 1350 and has been the base of the MacLean family for most of that time. Restored from ruin, it opens for the year in April.

Another ferry, Fishnish-Lochaline, takes you across the Sound of Mull back to the mainland and stark, mountainous terrain west of Fort William and Scotland’s highest point, Ben Nevis.  At the port of Mallaig it is time to leave the mainland again and sail to the Isle of Skye, which is worth weeks of anyone’s time in its own right. Better still, Dunvegan Castle is at the far northwestern extreme, requiring you to cross the beautiful island in order to see it.

Despite its remoteness – or perhaps because of it – Dunvegan is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland, and has been the ancestral home of the chiefs of Clan MacLeod for 800 years. Another castle facing the sea from a high vantage point on rock, Dunvegan is in excellent condition despite its age, and displays many of the clan’s accumulations from over the year, among them the Fairy Flag, which supposedly had miraculous powers when unfurled in battle. To give a sense of the clan’s ancient ancestry, another prized possession, the Dunvegan Cup, was given to the clan in thanks for its support against Queen Elizabeth – the First, that is. (She came to power in the 16^th century.) The castle and its grounds can be toured, and many visitors also take a boat trip onto Loch Dunvegan to see a seal colony there. The castle is open April to October (£10 adults £7 children).

A drive back across Skye, over the Skye Bridge to the mainland, brings you to Eileen Donan castle, perhaps the most evocative of them all. A dream for any photographer – and any manufacturer of shortbread biscuit tins – the castle is considered one of the essential visits of the Scottish Highlands. It sits on a small island overlooking Skye, where three sea lochs meet. It is accessed over an immaculate stone bridge which links it to the forested mountains of Kintail behind it.

It was originally settled not as a fortification but a monastic cell in 634AD, before becoming a castle in the 13^th century in order to fight off Vikings. It grew, then shrank, and changed many times over the ages, then was blown up by the Royal Navy in 1719 as payback for its role in a rebellion, and thereafter it lay in ruin for almost 200 years. It was then rebuilt as a family home in the early 20^th century, which is when the bridge was added, and today can be visited inside and out (you can even hold a wedding in the banqueting hall).

It is time to go from the west to the east, tracking the famous Loch Ness and passing through Inverness, on the way to Cawdor Castle, among flatter land near Nairn. Shakespeare aficionados will know the name: Macbeth becomes Thane of Cawdor (like Thane of Glamis, another castle on our trip) in the play, Thane being a title of Scottish peerage. Indeed, the real, historical King Macbeth fought a Thane of Cawdor, but well before this castle was built. In the 16^th century the castle passed from the Cawdor clan to the Campbells. Romantic and probably as close as Scotland gets to a fairy-tale castle, it is open for visits, has hundreds of years of art and history within, and even boasts a golf course.

One castle that can compete with Cawdor for the fairytale title is the next on the list, Craigievar in Aberdeenshire. The countryside around here is more pleasant than striking, but the castle itself, in the style of Scottish Baronial architecture with turrets and cupolas reminiscent of Bavaria’s Neuschwanstein castle, stands out dramatically. It is open to visitors from April to September.

Heading south towards Edinburgh now, next is Glamis Castle, the ancestral home of the Earls of Strathmore for more than 600 years, a grand building in the foothills of the Angus Glens. Aside from its Macbeth links, it is well known in England as the birthplace of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, but its history is proudly Scottish. Glamis prides itself on hospitality, from the castle piper at the gates to the gala dinners that are held within, and both its interior and its grounds are renowned.

Finally, and almost back in Edinburgh, our last stop is Stirling Castle, often done as a day-trip from the capital. This one still feels very much like a medieval fortress – it’s certainly draughty enough to feel ancient – and is steeped in battle: Henry II took it for England in 1174, the Scots took it back in 1189, Edward I in 1296, the Scots again the following year, the English again in 1336, the Scottish in 1442… and so on throughout its history. It is a place of sieges, beheadings and assassinations, coronations (including Scotland’s James V at just 17 months of age), where Mary Queen of Scots and her daughter James VI were crowned, and so many other pivotal moments in English and Scottish history. If you want to feel like you’re in Braveheart, this is the place. Today it has a terrific exhibition explaining its past, while its Great Hall, kitchens and vaults evoke a sense of its storied past.

There are dozens more besides, from Scotland’s outermost islands to the lowland borders, and they all offer many centuries of stories. They’re not always happy stories; more often than not they’re bloody. But they are rich, and their locations show the best of this beautiful country.