Tarbert Castle is located on the southern shore of East Loch Tarbert, at Tarbert, Argyll, Scotland, at the north end of Kintyre. Tarbert Castle was a strategic royal stronghold during the Middle Ages and one of three castles at Tarbert. The castle overlooks the harbour and although pre 14th century in construction, the tower dates back to 1494 and the visit of James IV to the Western Highlands.

In 712, Tarbert was burned by King Selbach mac Ferchair of Cenél Loairn and of Dál Riata and in 731 by his son, Dúngal mac Selbaig.

King Edward II of England handed control of the castle to the Scottish King John II de Balliol in 1292. A fortified structure was built in Tarbert during the 13th century. It was reinforced with the addition of an outer bailey and towers in the 1320s by Robert the Bruce, to protect it against the Lords of the Isles. A towerhouse was added in the 16th century, which is the most noticeable part of the remains. The castle occupies high land above the village, providing views up Loch Fyne and beyond to the Firth of Clyde. This castle was captured from John MacDonald of Islay, Lord of the Isles by James IV of Scotland as part of his campaign to destroy the power of the Lords of the Isles in 1494. In 1687 the castle was involved in another skirmish when Walter Campbell of Skipness Castle seized it as a stronghold for Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll as part of actions in support of the Monmouth Rebellion in England.

There are only a couple of standing walls left and they are considered unstable. The castle has a very commanding view of the water approaches.

Tarbert Castle

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Skipness Castle stands on the east side of the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland, near the village of Skipness. Together with the nearby Kilbrannan Chapel it is a scheduled ancient monument.

The main structure of the castle was built in the early 13th century by the Clan MacSween, with later fortifications and other additions made to the castle through the 13th, 14th and 16th centuries.

The castle was garrisoned with royal troops in 1494, during King James IV of Scotland's suppression of the Isles. Archibald Campbell, 2nd Earl of Argyll, granted Skipness to his younger son, Archibald Campbell, in 1511.

During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in 1646, the castle was besieged by forces under the command of Alasdair Mac Colla. During the siege, Alasdair's brother, Gilleasbuig Mac Colla, was killed in August 1646. The castle was abandoned in the 17th century.

Castle ghost
The Green Lady of Skipness Castle is said to haunt the location.

Skipness Castle

Kilmory Castle, also known as Kilmory House, is a large 19th-century house located just to the south of Lochgilphead, in Argyll, Argyll and Bute, on the west coast of Scotland. It is currently occupied by the headquarters of Argyll and Bute Council. The gardens are open to the public and form part of a country park on the former estate. The house is protected as a category B listed building.
There was a church at Kilmory in ancient times, and in the 1550s the church and lands of Kilmory were held by the Abbot of Paisley. In 1575 the estate was owned by Donald Campbell of Kilmory, and remained in the Campbell family for over 250 years. A house may have stood here as early as the 14th century. The Campbells built a house, or extended the existing one, in 1816–20. Eliza Campbell, the eldest daughter and co-heir of Peter Campbell, married Sir John Orde, 2nd Baronet in 1824. He purchased the estates following the death of his father in law in 1828 and of his wife in 1829. Orde demolished the modest old Campbell house and replaced it with a grand Gothic style mansion designed by architect Joseph Gordon Davis. The core of the older house was retained, but was extended into an L-plan, with new exterior and interior decoration, and a large octagonal tower at the south-west corner. Orde also greatly expanded and improved the grounds and estate, engaging William Hooker to extend the gardens in 1830. Further extensions were carried out in the 1860s.
Orde was buried in the private burial ground adjacent to the house in 1878. His son succeeded to the baronetcy, and changed his name to Campbell-Orde in 1880. The Campbell-Orde baronets retained the estate until 1938. It passed through several owners thereafter, and served variously as a hotel, hostel and conference centre.
In March 1949 an announcement was made that it would open in June as a national holiday centre for young people.
In July 1971 it was designated a category B listed building.
In 1974, Argyll County Council purchased the house to serve as a headquarters for Argyll and Bute District Council, which was formed in 1975. In 1995 local government was reorganised again, although Kilmory remained in use as the headquarters of the new Argyll and Bute unitary authority. An office block extension was built onto the house in 1980–82, to increase the provision of space. Fire damaged the main house the following year, and many interiors had to be refurbished.

Kilmory Castle

Lochranza Castle is an L-plan tower house situated on a promontory in Lochranza, on the north of the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Most of the castle was built in the 16th century.

The castle dates from the 13th century when it was owned by the MacSweens. In 1262, King Alexander III granted the castle and its lands to Walter Stewart, the Earl of Menteith. It is believed that Robert the Bruce landed at Lochranza in 1306 on his return from Ireland to claim the Scottish throne. By 1371, the castle was the property of Robert II. It is thought that at this time it was used as a royal hunting lodge.

During the 1490s, James IV used the castle in his campaign against the Lord of the Isles and the Clan MacDonald. In 1614 it was occupied by James VI and in the 1650s it was used by Cromwell.

By 1705, Lochranza Castle was the property of the Hamilton family, after it was purchased by the Duchess of Hamilton. The Hamiltons had owned other estates on the Isle of Arran so eventually sold it to the Blackwood-Davidson family who used it as their principal seat. During the 18th century, the castle fell into disuse and was abandoned. The castle is now in the care of Historic Scotland.

In popular culture
Lochranza Castle was the model for the castle in The Adventures of Tintin comic The Black Island, for the English translation in the 1960s when the drawings were modernised. Bob de Moor, Hergé's chief post-war assistant toured Britain following in Tintin's footsteps, using various locations to produce a series of background drawings. The castle appeared in "Dom Joly and the Black Island" on Channel 4 TV on 19 March 2010, in which it was portrayed as being Kisimul Castle on the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, as it appeared directly after Joly was shown attempting to reach Kisimul Castle.


Lochranza Castle (Arran Island)

Kames Castle is located on the shore of Kames Bay near Port Bannatyne, on the Isle of Bute, Scotland. It consists of a 16th-century tower house, extended by the addition of a range of cottages. The castle is set in 20 acres (81,000 m2) of planted grounds, including a 2-acre (8,100 m2) 18th-century walled garden.

History
The lands of Kames were granted to the Bannatyne family by Robert the Bruce in the 14th century. Although of 14th-century appearance, the present tower house is thought to date from the 16th century. The last Bannatyne owner was Sir William Macleod Bannatyne (1743–1833), a distinguished lawyer and judge in Edinburgh, who took the title Lord Bannatyne on promotion to the College of Justice in 1799. In the later 18th and early 19th century he laid out the walled garden and constructed a mansion adjoining the tower house.

Kames was the birthplace and early home of the critic and essayist John Sterling (1806–1844). Thomas Carlyle in his biography of Sterling refers to the castle as "a kind of dilapidated baronial residence to which a small farm was then attached". Lord Bannatyne sold the estate around 1810, to James Hamilton WS, preferring his social life in Edinburgh. Kames Castle became part of the Marquess of Bute's estate in 1863. Some alterations to the tower house were undertaken in the later 19th century. Around 1900 the mansion was demolished and replaced with a series of cottages around a courtyard, with the intention of creating a hunting lodge.

In the mid to late 20th century, Kames was used as a children's home. It is now privately owned, with a number of cottages available as holiday lets. The castle, cottages, walled garden and other estate buildings are category B listed buildings.

Kames Castle

Rothesay Castle is a ruined castle in Rothesay, the principal town on the Isle of Bute, in western Scotland. The castle has been described as "one of the most remarkable in Scotland", for its long history dating back to the beginning of the 13th century, and its unusual circular plan.

The castle comprises a huge curtain wall, strengthened by four round towers, together with a 16th-century forework, the whole surrounded by a broad moat. Built by the Stewart family, it survived Norse attacks to become a royal residence. Though falling into ruin after the 17th century, the castle was repaired by the Marquess of Bute before passing into state care in the 20th century.

The early castle
The castle was built either by Alan fitz Walter, Steward of Scotland (died 1204), or by his succeeding son Walter (died 1246). During Alan's tenure, the family added the Isle of Bute to their lordship. A wooden castle was constructed first, but the stone circular curtain wall was in place by the 1230s, when the castle was attacked and taken by the Norwegian-backed fleet of Óspakr-Hákon, King of the Isles (died 1230). According to Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, Óspakr's forces fought for three days to take the castle, breaking down part of the eastern wall by hewing the stone with their axes. This saga is the earliest recorded account of an assault on a Scottish castle. In 1263, Rothesay was taken again by the Norwegian forces under Hákon Hákonarson, King of Norway (died 1263) before the Battle of Largs. Although the Battle of Largs was indecisive, Hákon's campaign was unsuccessful, and effectively ended Norwegian authority in western Scotland.

The early castle comprised only the roughly circular curtain wall, 2.7 m (9 ft) thick, 7.9 m (26 ft) high and around 42 m (138 ft) in diameter, built on a low mound, with a battlement on top accessed by open stairs. The moat was connected to the sea, the shoreline then being closer to the north-east of the Castle than it is today. The broad crenellations can be made out within the walls, which were later raised. Holes in the upper wall would have supported a timber bretasche, a projecting structure serving as an extended battlement. This curtain wall was built of coursed ashlar, and had only two openings in its length. The main gate was an arched opening with a simple timber door. The second opening was a small postern gate in the west wall, later blocked.

In the later part of the 13th century, the castle was strengthened by the addition of four round towers, of which only the north-west survives intact. These three-storey towers had strong splayed bases, with arrow slits below the crenellated parapet. A portcullis was added to the main gate.

Wars of independence and the rise of the Stewarts
During the Wars of Scottish Independence, Rothesay was held by the English, but was taken by Robert the Bruce in 1311. It then returned to English hands in 1334, before being taken again by the Scots. Following the accession of the Stewarts to the throne of Scotland in 1371, the castle became a favourite residence of kings Robert II and Robert III, who died here in 1406. Robert II granted the hereditary keepership of the castle to his son John, ancestor of the Earls and Marquesses of Bute. Robert III made his eldest son David Duke of Rothesay in 1401, beginning a tradition of honouring the heir to the throne of Scotland with this title. In 1462 the castle survived a siege by the forces of John of Islay, Earl of Ross and the last Lord of the Isles.

16th and 17th centuries
In the early 16th century Rothesay Castle was strengthened again. Construction of a gatehouse keep, extending from the north of the curtain wall, began around the turn of the century, to provide more modern accommodation for James IV. The curtain wall itself was raised up to ten metres in height, the works continuing into the reign of James V. In 1527 the castle withstood another siege by the Master of Ruthven, which destroyed much of the burgh of Rothesay. In 1544, the castle fell to the Earl of Lennox, acting for the English during the so-called "Rough Wooing".

The forework is an L-plan structure, which jutted into the moat and was accessed by a drawbridge. The lower floor comprised a vaulted entrance tunnel running into the older castle courtyard. Above, the four-storey tower contained royal lodgings, and still bears the royal coat of arms above the door. Also in the early 16th century, a chapel was constructed inside the old castle. Simple in form, the chapel measured around 7 m (23 ft) by 14 m (45 ft), and is now the only surviving structure within the curtain wall. The north-west tower was converted into a doocot, and is known as the "Pigeon Tower", due to the nest boxes built into the outside wall.

Rothesay was garrisoned for the occupying forces of Oliver Cromwell, who invaded Scotland with his New Model Army in the early 1650s. On their departure in 1660, the troops partially dismantled the structure. What was left was burned by the supporters of Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll during his rising of 1685, in support of the Monmouth Rebellion against James VII.

Repair and restoration
Following a long period of neglect, the 2nd Marquess of Bute employed 70 men to excavate the ruins, clearing large amounts of rubbish from the castle in 1816-17. But it was not until the 1870s that the ruins were stabilised. The 3rd Marquess, a keen restorer of historic buildings, embarked upon a series of repairs and restorations, following surveys and advice from his regular architect William Burges. His "restorations" continued until 1900, and include the clearing and shaping of the moat, as well as the red sandstone additions to the forework, which reinstated the hall roof while significantly altering the character of the building.

In 1961 Rothesay Castle was given to the state, and is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument, in the care of Historic Scotland.

The castle is open to visitors year round. Fine views can be seen from the top of the walls over the town and back towards the mainland.

Rothesay Castle

Castle Toward is a nineteenth-century country house on the southern tip of the Cowal peninsula, overlooking Rothesay Bay in Argyll and Bute on the west-coast of Scotland.

Built in 1820 by Glasgow merchant Kirkman Finlay, it replaced the late medieval Toward Castle, formerly the ancestral home of the Clan Lamont. It was greatly extended in the early 20th century, and in the Second World War it served as HMS Brontosaurus. After the war it was sold to Glasgow Corporation and was used as an outdoor education facility until its closure in 2009. After a failed community buyout, Toward Castle and the estate were sold by Argyll and Bute Council to private owners in 2016.

Toward Castle
The original Toward Castle dates from the 15th century and was owned by the Clan Lamont until 1809. The castle was extended in the 17th century, but was abandoned after an attack by the Clan Campbell in 1646. The ruins lie around 500 metres (1,600 ft) south-east of the later Castle Toward. Toward Castle is a scheduled monument.

Castle Toward
The present Castle Toward was built in 1820 for Kirkman Finlay (1773–1842), former Lord Provost of Glasgow, as his family's country house. Finlay purchased the Achavoulin estate and renamed it Toward in 1818. It is built in the castellated Gothic Revival style, and was designed by David Hamilton. Edward La Trobe Bateman was involved in garden design work here in the 1880s.

It was from Castle Toward that the second son of Alexander Struthers Finlay - Alexander Kirkman Finlay - emigrated to the then colony of Victoria, Australia, and subsequently married the daughter of the then Governor of New South Wales, Hercules Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead. The wedding of Nora Robinson and Alexander Kirkman Finlay at St James' Church, Sydney, in 1878 attracted enormous attention in the colony and was extensively reported in the press.

Later owned and extended by Major Andrew Coats, of the Coats family of Paisley, Italian plasterwork was installed in the public rooms in 1920. The entire building was restored and enlarged over the course of the 1920s by the architect Francis William Deas, who also laid out most of the current landscaping. The grounds incorporate the ruins of the original Toward Castle, the Chinese ponds, wooded areas, access to the shore, and views over the Firth of Clyde.

HMS Brontosaurus
During the Second World War the castle was requisitioned as a combined operations centre (COC No. 2), and was commissioned as HMS Brontosaurus in 1942. It was a training centre for the amphibious landings which were launched on D-Day as well as other raids. Officers and men were trained in use of various landing craft on nearby beaches. Brontosaurus was visited by both Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten during this time. It closed in 1946.

Outdoor education centre
The castle, and 226 acres (0.91 km2) of woodland, were purchased by the Corporation of Glasgow in 1948. The building was used initially as a residential school for children recovering from illness or living in deprived home conditions. It then became available for residential education for children from all Glasgow Primary Schools and operated for 50 years as an outdoor education centre for children from Glasgow and Renfrewshire. With the reorganisation of local government in Scotland in 1996, ownership passed to Argyll and Bute Council and such centres were threatened with closure. Peter Wilson, at the time the principal of the centre, formed a company called Actual Reality to operate the centre, as well as a second council-owned centre at Ardentinny. Activities operated by Actual Reality included high ropes, kayaking, and orienteering, as well as gorge walks and hill walks. The grounds of the centre were used as a filming location for the children's BBC Television series Raven, featuring the actor James Mackenzie, up to and including the seventh series at the start of 2008. The house was also used for residential courses for young people in music and art. The Glasgow Schools' Symphony Orchestra and West of Scotland Schools' Concert Band visited regularly. The house has been a category B listed building since 1971, and the grounds were added to the national Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland in 2007.

Sale
On 13 November 2009 Argyll and Bute Council temporarily closed the castle on the recommendation of Strathclyde Fire and Rescue, on the grounds that it was unfit for purpose. There followed several attempts by the council to sell the estate, though all met with local opposition. The castle's former composer-in-residence, John Maxwell Geddes, wrote a Postlude for Strings in protest at plans to sell the castle. The Council placed the building on the market in 2010, and in response the South Cowal Community Development Company (SCCDC) was formed to explore community ownership of the castle, though their initial bid was rejected by the Scottish Ministers in 2011. An agreement was reached with a holiday company, which then pulled out of the sale in 2013 forcing the Council to market the property once more. SCCDC launched a second community ownership bid which was accepted by Scottish Ministers in November 2013. However, in December 2014 the Council rejected SCCDC's offer, claiming that at £865,000 it was below market value, and instead offered to support SCCDC with a loan. SCCDC dismissed the Council's proposal in January 2015, stating that securing the community purchase before a 31 January deadline now had "very little chance of succeeding". By 26 January, 5,600 people had signed an online petition calling on the Council to reconsider their decision. The council sold the castle in June 2016, for £1.51 million, to Denice Purdie and Keith Punler of Kapital Assets, who planned to develop houses, flats, a wedding venue and other businesses on the estate.
