Hidden Scotland
Sign in
Places to visit in Scotland

What do you want to see?

Castles, beaches, gardens, standing stones. Choose one, or scroll down for every place to visit.

CastlesBeachesWaterfallsDistilleriesMuseumsGalleriesGardensLighthouses
Did you know10 hours ago

In 1818 a former Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, Lord Erskine, rode to Gretna Green dressed as a woman to marry his housekeeper.

Thomas Erskine, once the most senior judge in the land, was in his late sixties when he set off north with Sarah Buck, his housekeeper. To slip past anyone who might stop them, he travelled in women's clothes. His son raced after them and arrived at Gretna Green, the first village over the Scottish border in Dumfries and Galloway, too late: the couple were married on 12 October 1818. The story is told in the Famous Blacksmiths Shop, where old coaches still stand.

An old coach in the Famous Blacksmiths Shop museum at Gretna Green.See Gretna Green · Dumfries and Galloway
Place of the day9 hours ago

Inveraray Castle.

The Gothic Revival home of the Dukes of Argyll on Loch Fyne, with the tallest ceiling in Scotland over its Armoury Hall.

Read about it
Quiz9 hours ago

In 1902 John Dewar & Sons, the Perth firm whose family built Aberfeldy distillery, trademarked the name of a way to drink whisky. Which?

Today8 hours agoAngusGlamis CastleAttractionAberdeenshireCrathes CastleAttractionFifeSt Andrews CastleAttractionInvernessCawdor CastleAttractionEdinburghEdinburgh CastleAttractionIsle of SkyeDunvegan CastleAttraction

Today calls for a castle.

7° and clear with periodic clouds across Scotland. Dry enough for the ramparts and the walk round the walls.

See them all
New at Lean To Coffee8 hours ago

Lean To Coffee at Breakish is building a year-round bakery in Broadford and plans to open seven days a week.

The croft café that started in two shipping containers in 2021 has taken a unit at Broadford Business Park for a commercial bakery, with new bakes for wholesale and retail to follow. Four bakery jobs come with it.

Photograph: KK Leung on Google MapsSee Lean to Coffee · Isle of Skye
In Issue 13The magazine

Recycled Decorations

In the past, Yule celebrations were far thriftier: folks would use what they had and turn simple, plain, everyday objects into beautiful decorations. A few years ago, I did an online workshop with artist Jess Wheeler where we made decorations out of old tubes of tomato purée, which sounds like it sh

Read it in Issue 13
From the magazine7 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 02Issue 02Spring / Summer 2021

Gylen Castle, a rake-thin 16th-century tower on a cliff edge on the Isle of Kerrera, off Oban, stands about an hour's walk from where the tiny ferry lands.

It looks like something from a child's storybook, so close to the edge that a gust of wind might carry it away. Duncan MacDougall built it in the late 16th century, and today it is the high point of a visit to Kerrera, an artistic island community that visitors to Oban's busy harbour all too easily miss. From its walls on a clear day you can see the Paps of Jura to the south, the mountains of Mull close by to the west, and the shore of mainland Argyll across the narrow Sound of Kerrera. The writer David C. Weinczok says every step of the walk there is a delight.

See Gylen Castle · Argyll and Bute
From Issue 10 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 107 hours ago

Craft and Soul

Hugo Macdonald and James Stevens on Bard, their shop and gallery on the shore at Leith, where Scottish craft and design are chosen for the stories behind them.

Read the story
Did you know7 hours ago

Clynelish reopened as the Highland home of Johnnie Walker in April 2021.

It was the second of the four Johnnie Walker distilleries to be redone under Diageo's £185 million spend on visitor centres, and was given secret rooms opened with hidden keys and a terrace bar looking over Brora's hills.

See Clynelish Distillery · Sutherland
From our Isle of Skye guide6 hours ago

Angus MacAskill, the 7 foot 9 inch 'true giant' remembered in a museum at Dunvegan on Skye, was given a Guinness World Record for his height in 1981, more than a century after his death.

Angus was born in 1825 on Berneray, in the Sound of Harris, and grew up in Cape Breton, in Canada, where he became known as the Cape Breton Giant, with the strength to match his size. The museum that remembers him was opened in 1989 by a local man, Peter MacAskill, in memory of the most famous member of his clan. It is built inside a former croft, a low white cottage with a thick thatched roof on Dunvegan's main street, and it celebrates Angus as a real Skye hero. Inside, a life-size figure of the giant towers over every visitor, and the displays chart his life and his staggering height.

A life-size figure of Angus MacAskill in the Giant Angus MacAskill Museum, Dunvegan.See Giant MacAskill Museum · Isle of Skye
Did you know6 hours ago

Gretna Green hosted fewer than 100 weddings a year in the mid-1970s, and a record 5,555 in 2004.

The runaway marriages ended in 1940, and for a while the village in Dumfries and Galloway was quiet. Then the weddings came back, this time by choice rather than escape: by 2000 there were more than 5,000 a year, and in 2004 there were 5,555, a record, according to the National Records of Scotland. Couples still come from all over the world to say their vows over the anvil, and for those who want something simpler, there is a 15-minute handfasting with a tartan ribbon.

A couple at the marriage anvil during a handfasting at Gretna Green.See Gretna Green · Dumfries and Galloway
True or false5 hours ago

True or false: people spit on the Heart of Midlothian, a heart set into the cobbles of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, for good luck.

From our collectionsA collection5 hours agoFifeCrailIsle of IslayBowmoreEdinburghNewhavenDumfries and GallowayKirkcudbrightArgyll and ButeTarbertIsle of IslayPort AskaigLoch LomondTarbetCaithnessWickArgyll and ButeKames villageInvernessNairn

The Prettiest Villages in Scotland

Harbour rows, painted fronts and a single street running down to the water. Scotland's prettiest villages are the ones worth an hour on foot with a coffee at the end, and these are our favourites.

See the whole collection