Issue 40

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We’re delighted to be back with a new ‘Hidden Scotland Weekly’. We really hope that you enjoy reading.

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Have a great Sunday!

LAST CHANCE TO PRE-ORDER

We now have the eighth edition of Hidden Scotland magazine in our hands, and as ever we are beyond delighted with how it has turned out. We hope that those of you who have preordered already, will love reading it, these orders will be dispatching from Monday 15th.Incase you didn't know already, all of our preorders come with a free gift as a token of our appreciation.

A bookmark, this issue we have chosen  the stunning views of Orkney from the sky, as well as an A5 print of our cover image, this issue we have chosen a beautiful shot of Crail. This all arrives wrapped in tissue, sealed with a branded sticker. If you didn't get a chance to preorder and would still like a chance to get the free gift, then please order by 11am on Monday 15th of April. (BST) to secure yours. All of our subscribers get the free gifts too.

Legends From The Old Man of Storr

The Old Man of Storr is one of Skye's most iconic landmarks and most popular hikes. It’s no surprise that more than one folk story has grown around this uniquely shaped pinnacle of rock.

The most popular legend tells us that Skye was once a land of Giants. These enormous figures roamed the island from the Cuillins to the Quiraing, the sound of their constant fighting filling the air. During one of these regular battles, a particularly large giant was slain on the Trotternish Peninsula.

Abandoned where he fell, the land eventually swallowed up all but this one point, left poking above ground. Some say the Old Man of Storr was the giant’s thumb, while others know it as a slightly more intimate part of his body.

Another folk story attributes the landscape to Skye's mischievous fairies. A local couple once climbed to the top of these hills every single day of their long and happy marriage. As the years passed and the couple grew older, the wife began to struggle with their daily hike.

Her husband refused to break the tradition and when she just couldn’t climb any longer, he carried her on his back. It wasn’t long before the old man wasn’t strong enough anymore, but he still didn’t want to leave his love behind.

The fairies had taken an interest in the strange sight of the couple plodding up the hill daily. When they heard the man wish that his wife was able to go everywhere that he went, they decided to pay him a visit. The fairies agreed to grant his request, all he had to do was carry his partner up the hill one more time on his back.

Once they had reached the top, the devious creatures turned the couple into this huge stone pillar. As promised, the husband would no longer go anywhere without his wife, joined together forever.

The last story relates to a much friendlier creature from Skye. A farmer who lived at the foot of the slope had once saved the life of a kind and honourable Brownie. These small creatures were well sought after, usually helping with chores around the house at night. This farmer didn’t want free labour though and instead, the two became close friends.

Years later, the farmer's wife fell ill and tragically passed away. With a broken heart, the farmer died the very next day leaving the brownie all alone. Devastated at the loss, he decided to honour his friend in a lasting memorial. The brownie carved a rock above their home into the shape of his good friend, creating the Old Man of Storr.

The appearance of this landmark has changed greatly since these stories were first told. So much of the pillar’s rockface has crumbled away that it takes a good imagination to see the shapes that made the legends. Not as many people believe in giants, fairies or brownies anymore, but you can’t deny that there’s something very special about the Old Man of Storr.

Words by Graeme Johncock 

The Unmissable Castles of Argyll

To understand the world that many of Argyll's castles operated within, it is necessary to completely change how we view Scotland. Often, Argyll and the Isles are spoken of with words like 'remote', 'wild', and 'peripheral'. Indeed, in a world dominated by overland transport, that may appear to be the case. Now, imagine that all of Scotland's tarmac roads and railways have vanished. That was life before the Industrial Revolution. Suddenly, the logic is entirely flipped. In such a world, waterways are not barriers but arteries connecting Scotland's west coast to the rest of Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Northern Europe, and far beyond.

The possibilities for trade, diplomacy, and conquest for a chieftain with several longships on the Isle of Mull would have been the envy of mainland lords, whose journeys were slower, less efficient, and more perilous by far. Look at Scotland this way, and the 'periphery' becomes a staging ground from which its inhabitants were launched into a vast, international seaborne network. For this reason, many Argyll castles fall within the category of 'galley castles', castles built to provide safe anchorage and take advantage of the high-speed world of waterways. Such access brought not only riches, but ideas and fashions, too. This is why Argyll is home to some of Scotland's oldest stone-built castles, as architectural developments from far afield could be adapted to local places of strength.

Many galley castles were built on sites of ancient fortifications dating back to the Iron Age or even earlier - a statement of continuity stretching back centuries before written records began. To visit the castles of Argyll, especially coastal Argyll, is therefore to glimpse into a time when Scotland itself was taking shape: when Vikings clashed with Gaels; when Highlands and Lowlands became distinct spheres of culture, language, and lifestyles; and when power was measured not in knights and cannons, but in longships and castles - a synthesis of stone and ships like no other in the British Isles. This a journey to some of the most evocative castles from that world. It is far from comprehensive, with nearly 100 castles of all styles and sizes dotting mainland Argyll and the Isles. These are, however, the ones that inspire the greatest awe and linger most clearly in the memory long after setting foot in and around them.

Castle Stalker

The innumerable tiny islands that dot Scotland's coasts and lochs have been used as residences and refuges for millennia. Many early Christian monks made their hermitages upon them, and later castle builders could attain the ultimate solitude by using them as their foundations. Such was the case with Castle Stalker, built upon what is little more than a jut of rock astride Loch Linnhe. Both a historian and photographer's paradise, Castle Stalker - from Gaelic Stalcaire, meaning hunter or falconer - began as a castle of the regionally dominant MacDougalls. In 1388 the Lordship of Lorn passed to the Stewarts, and it was likely John Stewart who built the present castle some time in the mid-15th century. King James IV, who fell at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, was a regular visitor - the Stewarts of Appin were his cousins, after all - and his frequent hunting expeditions in the area are possibly the source of the castle's evocative name.

Like Doune Castle near Stirling, Castle Stalker attained international stardom when it appeared in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The phenomenon of people visiting Scotland's castles because of pop culture is not unique to the modern era. Shakespeare's MacBeth made Cawdor Castle and Glamis Castle into household names (despite there being no historical connection to MacBeth!), and Walter Scott's Romantic novels spurred droves of Victorian tourists to the Highlands to revel in the glamorised landscapes of his works. Castle Stalker combines this stardom with magnificent mountain scenery, and is rightly regarded as a must-see location on any visit to the area.

Kilchurn Castle

Kilchurn Castle has joined the ranks of Scotland's most iconic and oft-photographed castles, alongside Edinburgh Castle and Eilean Donan Castle - and with very good reason. Astride the northern banks of Loch Awe in the shadow of Ben Cruachan, Kilchurn seems purposely cited for maximum impact. In a way, it was. Colin Campbell, first Lord of Glenorchy, established it in the 1450s as a testament to the rising power of Clan Campbell. It is well worth taking in the castle from all angles, for which each perspective it appears to take on wholly new forms.

In the late 17th century when gunpowder weapons well and truly dominated European battlefields, the Campbells converted Kilchurn into a sort of castle-cum-barracks suitable for housing 200 troops, giving it a claim to being the oldest purpose-built barracks in Britain. Not long afterwards the fortress at Fort William - hence the name - was constructed, rendering Kilchurn' function as a barracks moot. It was struck by lightning and extensively damaged in the 1760s, from which time it has stood as a Romantic ruin and a muse for artists and poets such as J M W Turner, who also painted Gylen Castle in 1831, and William Wordsworth.

Dunollie Castle

If Oban is the gateway to the Isles, then Dunollie Castle is the gatekeeper. Standing atop a promontory overlooking Oban Bay, Dunollie Castle - overgrown with vines so as to partially fuse with the surrounding greenery - was the oldest and most revered seat of Clan MacDougall. The site has been fortified since at least 700AD when it was a part of the Scots Kingdom of Dál Riata. It was temporarily lost by the MacDougalls when they supported the cause of John Comyn rather than of Robert the Bruce, who wrought furious vengeance against them by laying siege to their many local castles.

Carved on a stone near the base of the tower is a war galley, the symbol of Clan MacDougall and the key to power on the western seaboard. Such galleys connected the MacDougalls to their other strongholds in the area, including Dunstaffnage, Gylen, and Coeffin.

Standing in a field just south of the castle is the Dog Stone, a 400-million year old rock pillar. Gaelic lore tells of how the giant Fingal tied his great hound to this stone before going to hunt in Ireland, and the hound's anxiousness drove it to run around in circles. The rope bit into the stone, causing it to take on its unusual tapered shape. In fact it was erosion from the prehistoric tides that caused this, but the account of Fingal's hound is just one of many examples of local legends making for a far better story.

Duntrune Castle

The concentration of history in Kilmartin Glen confounds comprehension. Within just a few square miles there are over 600 historic sites. Punctuating the very southern edge of this extraordinary landscape upon the banks of Loch Crinan is Duntrune Castle, which has a good claim to being the oldest continually occupied castle in all of Scotland.

The 16th century L-Plan tower house was added to a much older curtain wall possibly dating to the late 12th century. This simple design is known as a 'castle of enclosure', and its basic format is seen in castles across Scotland's western seaboard including Castle Tioram, Dunstaffnage Castle, and Mingary Castle. With all of those locations and many more being easily accessible in less than a day by sea, it is easy to see how this regional style developed and was replicated as castles sprung up in abundance during the late twelfth through fifteenth centuries. The castle is a private residence, so in lieu of an interior tour take the time when in the area of explore the countless wonders of Kilmartin Glen. Not to be missed are the hillfort of Dunadd, once a capital of the formative Kingdom of Dál Riata, the ancient cairns near Kilmartin village, and the enigmatic rock art at Achnabreck and Ormaig.

Dunyvaig Castle

Islay was the beating heart of the Lordship of the Isles, with the their capital of Finlaggan located on an inland loch in the north of the island. Dunyvaig Castle, guarding the shores of Lagavulin Bay which it also now shares with Lagavulin distillery, was the primary naval fortress of the chiefs of the Clan MacDonald. Their maritime power was such that mainland Scottish kings only dared to venture west when accompanied by great strength, and even then the power of the sea wolves of the Lordship could -and regularly did - turn them back.

Like so many other west coast castles it was built upon the site of an ancient dun (fort), and also like so many others it was destroyed in the late 17th century and replaced by a more modern residence. Several of the most recognisable clan names of the western seaboard laid their hands upon Dunyvaig at one point or another including the MacDonalds, MacIans, and Campbells. A Covenanter army under David Leslie seized it in 1647 and Leslie proceeded to hang the MacDonalds from the walls as a grisly warning to any who thought to retake it from him. Nowadays the ruins are very fragile and best viewed from a distance.

Much like at Gylen Castle, it is difficult to reconcile the beauty of the lapping waves and sweeping views - with the shores of Northern Ireland easily visible across the Irish Sea - with this tumultuous history. In 2018 a rare seal was found within the castle belonging to Sir John Campbell of Cawdor (c. 1576 - 1642). It would have been used to seal charters and other highly important legal documents, showing that even after the Lordship of the Isles fell into ruin the castle of Dunyvaig remained a place of tremendous power and symbolic importance.

More castles worth visiting

Castle Coeffin

There is something undeniably fantastical about Castle Coeffin on the Isle of Lismore. Though modest in size, its ivy-clad ruins resemble an eldritch crown, or perhaps the clenching fist of a titan rising up from the very earth. In fact, Coeffin was a hall-house of the kind found throughout the Norse-Gaelic realm of the Isles.

Duart Castle

It is one of the most unforgettable visions from any journey to the west. As the ferry from Oban to Craignure on Mull nears its destination, a great castle, perched like an eagle atop a high cliff, slowly comes into view. This is Duart Castle, seat of the MacLeans of Duart and perhaps the single most impressive castle in all of Argyll.

Gylen Castle

Like something straight out of a child's storybook, the rake-thin tower of Gylen Castle stands precipitously on a cliff's edge looking as though a gust of wind could carry it away. This 16th century tower is the climax of a visit to the Isle of Kerrera, an eccentrically artistic island community that is all too easily missed by visitors to the bustling harbour of Oban.

Breachacha Castle

Perhaps the most unusual castle on this list, Breachacha is the sole castle on the Isle of Coll. Its white harling, block-like shape and mismatched corner towers makes it resemble a sandcastle built from the contents of the adjacent beach. There is something almost Brutalist in its design, though the castle predates that architectural movement by more than 500 years.

Skipness Castle

Skipness Castle is not only an exceptionally well-formed castle in a beautiful location, it is an ideal place from which to perceive the interconnectivity of Argyll's castles. Suibhne, the early thirteenth century Lord of Knapdale, built Skipness and a number of other castles to consolidate his hold on this area of Scotland. One of these, Lochranza Castle on Arran, is visible on a clear day from the walls of Skipness, and the royal castle of Tarbert stands just a few miles along the coast to the north. This truly is castle country.

Words by David C. Weinczok and photographs by Simon Hird and Sam Rogers.