Urquhart Castle

Urquhart Castle

A castle on Loch Ness

On a rocky headland reaching into the dark waters of Loch Ness stands the ruin of Urquhart Castle. Once one of the largest castles in Scotland, it is now a romantic shell of broken walls and a single tall tower, with the long loch stretching away on either side and wooded hills rising behind. It lies on the loch's western shore, near the village of Drumnadrochit in the Highlands, and few castle ruins anywhere have a more famous — or more mysterious — setting.

Ancient beginnings

The rock at Urquhart has been a stronghold far longer than the castle that stands there now. Long before the Middle Ages it held a fort of the Picts, the people who lived in northern Scotland in ancient times. According to an old story, the Christian missionary Saint Columba visited a Pictish nobleman near here in the sixth century — the same journey on which, legend says, he encountered a strange beast in the nearby River Ness. The stone castle whose ruins survive today was built mainly between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Fought over and raided

Because it guarded the Great Glen — the long natural valley that slices across the Highlands — Urquhart was a place worth fighting for. During the Wars of Independence it was captured and recaptured by Scots and English alike. Later it was raided again and again by the powerful MacDonald Lords of the Isles, who swept in from the west to seize its cattle, treasure and stores. For centuries the castle changed hands and changed shape, growing into a small fortified settlement on the loch.

The Grant Tower and the great blow-up

The most striking ruin at Urquhart is the Grant Tower, a tall five-storey tower house at the northern end of the castle, named after the family who held it in its final centuries. Urquhart's life as a fortress ended in 1692. Rather than let it fall into the hands of Jacobite rebels, the government soldiers holding it deliberately blew it up as they left. Part of the gatehouse was thrown down, and the castle was abandoned to crumble slowly into the picturesque ruin we see today.

Nessie and visiting today

Urquhart is now one of the most popular places in the Highlands — partly for its history, and partly because it sits beside the home of the world's most famous monster. Many reported sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, or "Nessie," have been made from near the castle, and visitors love to scan the deep, cold water for a ripple or a hump. Whether or not a monster lurks below, the view from the battered Grant Tower across Loch Ness is unforgettable, and the castle's long story — Picts and saints, kings and raiders, a sudden explosion and a slow decay — makes it one of Scotland's best-loved ruins.