Kilchurn Castle

Kilchurn turns up in a charter of March 1449 as "apud Castrum de Glenurquhay", so the tower was standing by then, built for Sir Colin Campbell, 1st Lord of Glenorchy. His father had handed him the Loch Awe lands to keep him loyal after his elder brother died suddenly. It worked. The Campbells of Glenorchy grew into the most powerful junior branch of Clan Campbell, at times close to rivalling the earls of Argyll themselves, and Kilchurn was their base for the best part of 150 years. Back then it sat on an island barely bigger than its own walls, reached by a low causeway. The loch was lowered in 1817 and left the castle on the marshy peninsula you see today, with the River Orchy coming in on one side and Ben Cruachan filling the sky behind.

Each generation added a bit. The original five-storey tower held a hall, private chambers, a cellar and a prison. Duncan, the 2nd Lord, put up the laich hall in the courtyard before Flodden killed him in 1513. A later Colin added the corner turrets, then moved the family seat east to Balloch, now Taymouth, before his death in 1583. The last big change came after 1689, when Sir John Campbell, 1st Earl of Breadalbane, converted his ancestral seat into a garrison, turning the tower into officers' quarters and building a barracks block for 200 men. That block still stands close to complete, and it's the oldest surviving barracks on the British mainland. Government soldiers used the place during the 1715 and 1745 risings, the family tried and failed to sell it to the state, and in 1760 lightning did what no siege ever had. One of the turrets still lies upside down in the courtyard where it landed. By 1770 the roof was gone.

Turner painted the ruin in the early 1800s and photographers have been at it ever since, with good reason. Reflections on a still morning, mist off the loch, snow on Cruachan. It earns the postcards. One practical warning though: the castle interior is currently closed for conservation work on account of falling masonry, with no reopening date given, so for now the visit is the walk and the exterior. Still worth doing. The stories come free, including the Witch of Kilchurn, a widow said to have moved into the abandoned ruin, whose tobacco smoke people claim to smell in the courtyard yet.