The Best Castle Hotels in Scotland

Glenapp is a Scottish Baronial mansion of 1870, designed by David Bryce, on the Ayrshire coast at Ballantrae. For most of the last century it was the seat of the Earls of Inchcape. The McMillan family bought it in 1994 and spent six years restoring it, and today it’s a five-star hotel that holds a Michelin Key.

There are two places to eat: the castle dining room, and The Azalea, which opened in 2025 in the Victorian glasshouse in the walled garden. The hotel will also take you out to sea on its Hebridean Sea Safari.

Visit Glenapp Castle

Fonab stands on the shore of Loch Faskally, across the water from Pitlochry. It was built in 1892 for a member of the Sandeman port family, and after years of standing empty it opened as a five-star hotel in 2013.

It has 42 bedrooms, from rooms in the castle to lodges in the grounds, and a woodland spa with a swimming pool. You eat in the 1892 Grill or, for something different, in a glass pod by the loch. The town is under half an hour’s walk away.

Visit Fonab Castle

Stonefield was built in 1837 to designs by William Playfair, and it stands in 60 acres of woodland garden on the shore of Loch Fyne, two miles from the fishing village of Tarbert. It has been a hotel since 1950.

There are 38 bedrooms, with views of the garden or the loch, and the wood panelling and marble fireplaces are still in place. Dogs are welcome for a small charge.

Visit Stonefield Castle

Tulloch Castle stands on a hill in Dingwall, about 15 miles north of Inverness. Parts of it go back to the late 14th century at least. For 150 years it was the home of the Davidson family, and it has been a hotel since 1996.

There are 22 bedrooms, a restaurant called Turrets and a panelled Great Hall some 250 years old. The bar is called the Green Lady. Dogs can stay in the bedrooms for a small charge.

Visit Tulloch Castle

Sherbrooke is a red sandstone baronial villa with a square tower, built in 1896 for a Glasgow contractor in Pollokshields, on the south side of the city. In the Second World War the Royal Navy used it as a radar training centre.

It’s a hotel of 18 rooms now, with a restaurant and afternoon tea every day. It suits a city break if you’d like a quiet place to come back to.

Visit Sherbrooke Castle

Mingary is the real thing, a medieval castle on a rock above the Sound of Mull, a mile from the village of Kilchoan. It’s the most westerly castle on the British mainland. King James IV used it against Clan Donald in the 1490s. After long years as an empty ruin, it was restored and opened in 2016.

There are just four suites inside the walls, and stays are usually for two nights or more. Allow about two hours for the drive from Fort William.

Visit Mingary Castle

Thirlestane is the turreted castle at Lauder, about 30 miles south of Edinburgh. Its central tower was finished in 1590, and it has been the home of the Maitland family for more than 400 years. The plasterwork ceilings are some of the finest in the country.

You can stay in the South Wing, which holds five self-catering suites with eight bedrooms between them. Take one for a couple, or all five for a party of sixteen. There are also woodland lodges in the grounds with private hot tubs. The castle suites are open all year.

More about Thirlestane Castle

Buittle stands in the valley of the Urr Water, a mile and a half from Dalbeattie. The Lords of Galloway built the first castle here about 1170, and Lady Devorguilla, who founded Balliol College in Oxford, is part of its story. That first castle is a ruin. The house you sleep in grew up beside it, and its Great Hall dates from the 16th and 17th centuries.

It’s a family home with four bedrooms for guests, among them the Baron’s Bedchamber and the Mary Queen of Scots Room. You can also take the whole house.

Visit Buittle Castle

Now for the castles you take whole. Kilmartin is a small tower house built in 1550 for John Carswell, the rector of Kilmartin, at the top of a glen full of standing stones and burial cairns. It stood empty for about two centuries. Its present owners refurbished it in 2019.

It sleeps ten in en-suite bedrooms, some with copper baths or wood-burning stoves. You cook for yourselves or have a chef come in, and there’s a swimming pond in the garden. Oban is 29 miles north.

Visit Kilmartin Castle

Fenton Tower is a 16th-century tower house in the fields near North Berwick, about 20 miles east of Edinburgh. It was restored in the 1990s. Children may know it as Archie’s castle in Balamory, though the pink was added for television. The real stone is a pale grey.

The tower sleeps twelve in seven bedrooms, with more beds in a lodge and a cottage, and it’s let to groups of eight or more with breakfast included.

Visit Fenton Tower

Erchless was the seat of Clan Chisholm for five hundred years. The tower you see was built about 1600, with a baronial wing added in 1895, and it stands where the Erchless Burn meets the River Beauly, at the mouth of Strathglass.

It’s let by the week for up to sixteen, with a Georgian dining room, a games room with a billiard table and bikes to borrow. The estate has salmon fishing on the River Glass.

Visit Erchless Castle

Duchray is a small tower house of the late 16th century, deep in the forest two and a half miles from Aberfoyle, in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. It belonged to the Grahams, and it was a meeting place for the Royalists in 1653.

The castle sleeps eight in four bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, and it stands in 80 acres of parkland. It’s about an hour from Glasgow.

Visit Duchray Castle

Not every castle stay needs twenty friends. Tower O’Ess is a little Victorian tower on the banks of the River Tanar, built between 1871 and 1873 as the grand entrance to the Glen Tanar estate, and it’s for two.

Inside there’s a super-king bed, a roll-top bath and a fire in the sitting room. Outside, a hot tub hung with fairy lights looks into the pine woods, with the river running past.

More about Tower O’Ess