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Castles
on Arran.

It’s 21:44 on Arran.
Isle of Arran

Brodick's red towers and Lochranza's spit.

Arran's castles each keep watch over a different part of the island. Above Brodick Bay, the red sandstone seat of the Dukes of Hamilton stands among rhododendrons, with a walled garden, red squirrels in the woods and Britain's only island country park all around it. At the north end, a castle that began as a hall-house around 1300 sits alone on a spit of shingle in Loch Ranza. In the south, a single ivy-wrapped tower of the Lords of the Isles looks out from Kildonan to Pladda and Ailsa Craig. Give Brodick most of a day, as the gardens and trails are worth it.

Kildonan Castle→
Lochranza Castle→
Brodick Castle, Garden and Country Park→
Castle of the day20 hours ago

Skipness Castle.

A great stone castle on the north-east shore of Kintyre, begun by the MacSweens in the early 1200s and later held by the MacDonalds and the Campbells.

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Did you know19 hours ago

You can tell who the lords of Lochranza were afraid of by which way the front door faces.

The MacSweens, who probably built the first castle here in the late 1200s, put their main door high up in the seaward wall, reached by a wooden stair or ladder. Everything that could threaten them came up this loch. Three hundred years later, when one of the Montgomerie earls of Eglinton rebuilt the place as a tower house, the entrance was moved: it now faced the land, and it sat at ground level. The sea had stopped being the thing to watch.

See Lochranza Castle · Isle of Arran
From the magazine18 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 11Issue 11Autumn / Winter 2025–26

When the Landmark Trust took on Saddell Castle, on Saddell Bay in Kintyre, large trees were growing out of its parapets.

The tower was built in 1508 for the Bishop of Argyll and held by the Campbells for almost 400 years, and only its outer walls and two fireplaces survive from the original building. The Landmark Trust, a charity that rescues historic buildings and lets them as holiday homes, has reopened it after a year of renovation. From the battlemented wall walk round the roof, you can see across the Kilbrannan Sound to the Isle of Arran. Down on the long white shore, you could hum Mull of Kintyre to yourself: this is the beach where Paul McCartney filmed its music video.

See Saddell Bay and Castle · Isle of Arran
From Issue 11 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 1116 hours ago

The Best of the Isle of Arran

Our guide to the Isle of Arran, from Goatfell, Glen Rosa and the King's Cave to Brodick and Lochranza castles, its distilleries, beaches and places to eat and stay.

Read the story
Did you know15 hours ago

The rare plants around Brodick Castle are there because a duchess bought shares in plant-hunting expeditions.

Lady Mary Louise Hamilton, 6th Duchess of Montrose, began clearing great swathes of the garden in 1923 to make room for something newsworthy. To get hold of rare rhododendrons and azaleas she took shares in the expeditions themselves, among them those of the collectors George Forrest and Frank Kingdon-Ward, and was paid in seed. Arran's mild, wet micro-climate and a shelterbelt planted back in the 1700s do the rest: this is one of the few places in Britain where plants that tender will survive outdoors at all. Three National Collections of rhododendrons grow here now.

See Brodick Castle, Garden and Country Park · Isle of Arran
From our guide14 hours ago

Kildonan Castle.

An ivy-covered tower on the slope above the shore is all that is left of Kildonan Castle. It was built in the 13th century by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, and in 1558 it was sacked and burned in an English raid and never rebuilt. The castle and the village both take their name from St Donan, an Irish missionary of the 7th century. The ruin is free to visit, but it is fragile, so admire it from the ground. The view runs out over the sea to Pladda and, on a clear day, Ailsa Craig.

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Lunch13 hours agoIsle of ArranArran Botanical Drinks, Cladach400 yardsIsle of ArranThe French Fox, Brodick1.1 milesIsle of ArranThe Parlour, Brodick1.2 miles

Lunch near Brodick Castle, Garden and Country Park.

The three good places closest to it: Arran Botanical Drinks, Cladach, The French Fox, Brodick and The Parlour, Brodick.

See Brodick Castle, Garden and Country Park
From the magazine11 hours ago

Lochranza, the village at the north end of the Isle of Arran, could only be reached by water until 1843.

Today a pass road climbs over to it from Brodick, a road the magazine writer's four-year-old son said was like Snakes and Ladders. The village is tucked where Arran folds into the Kilbrannan Sound, sheltered by Glen Easan and Glen Chalmadale, with the photogenic remains of a 13th-century castle on a peninsula in the loch. It is famous as the spot where the 18th-century geologist James Hutton proved that the earth was billions, not thousands, of years old. Keep an eye on the grass by the village golf course as you pass, because red deer may be grazing there.

Read the full story in Issue 8
Open again10 hours ago

The Bavarian summerhouse in the grounds of Brodick Castle on Arran has reopened after its conservation.

Built into the sandstone cliff above Brodick Bay, it is the last of four made for Princess Marie of Baden after her marriage to the 11th Duke of Hamilton in 1843. A circular walk from the castle reaches it through the walled garden.

Read about it
Did you know9 hours ago

The first door of Lochranza Castle, on Arran, was set high in the wall and guarded by three barriers.

The main door was high in the east wall, probably reached by a wooden stair or ladder. It led to a single stair that rose through the building, with three barriers along the way.

See Lochranza Castle · Isle of Arran
Arran8 hours ago

Lochranza Castle, on Arran, stands on something older and rarer than itself, a hall-house of the 1200s.

Lochranza Castle stands on a peninsula running out into Loch Ranza, at the north end of the Isle of Arran. The tower house dates from the 1500s, but it was raised on something older and rarer, a hall-house of the 1200s. Historic Environment Scotland looks after the ruin.

Find out more about Lochranza Castle
Did you know7 hours ago

Lochranza Castle is two castles, one built on top of the other, and nobody realised until the 1950s.

For a long time it was taken for what it looks like: a straightforward tower house of the 1500s, the kind that stands all over Scotland. Then detailed analysis of the ruins in the 1950s found an older building inside the newer one. What is underneath is a hall-house of the late 1200s or early 1300s, two storeys under battlements with the lord's lodging above and storage below. It is a rare thing to find at all. The tower house was dropped on top of it in a single phase of building three centuries later.

See Lochranza Castle · Isle of Arran