Publication Account
Date 1995
Event ID 1016678
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016678
This imposing ruined castle, once the seat of the Sinciair Earls of Caithness, is set on a precipitous promontory, one side facing out to sea, the other looking over a narrow sea inlet (a 'geo' or 'goe'), and it is defended by two rock-cut ditches with an outer ward between them. Within the inner ditch stands the tall tower built in the late 15th century by William, Earl of Caithness, and behind it are lower buildings occupying all the available space. In 1607 a whole new structure was built in the outer ward, a fortification of some architectural pretension judging by the finely carved corbels which once supported angle turrets and windows. Sometimes known as Castle Sinciair, this building was an addition to the earlier castle, not a replacement. It is possible that it is built over, or incorporates, an earlier gatehouse. It is now very ruinous save for one fragment standing threestoreys high. The castle was besieged and captured in 1690 in the course of an inheritance dispute and never occupied again.
Both ditches must have been crossed by some sort of removeable wooden bridge. A vaulted passage with portcullis slot leads through the buildings in the outer court to the second ditch; this slopes down to the sea at a dangerous angle and is best approached, not from the outer court, but through the small postern gate in the south wall. The original access to the tower was by a wooden bridge to a door on the ground floor, but present entry is by a breach in the wall of a vaulted basement store or dungeon, from which a straight flight of stairs leads up.
The main tower is an irregular L-plan block with an extra stair tower. It is built of thin grey Caithness flagstone with imported red sandstone dressings for the window frames and the corners. On the ground floor is a dog-leg entrance passage with two guard rooms beside it, one with a small fireplace and a stone seat. There is a kitchen in the wing behind with wall cupboards and a large fireplace, with a seat in it, filling one wall. Below the central guard chamber is another basement, perhaps once the well room, reached by a stair in the wall. All these rooms are vaulted. Food from the kitchen had to be carried across the open court to reach the stairs to the great hall. This was on the first floor, and had a fine oriel window looking west and a private room in the wing behind. In the floor of this room was a trapdoor to a hidden room above the kitchen, with a window looking out to sea. Above were bedrooms and then attics, their wooden floors and the roof long vanished.
Considerable attention was given to defence, and the wall above the sea inlet had a regular row of gun-loops. Projecting from the seaward face of the castle are a line of stone corbels that held a covered wooden balcony from which defenders could rain down missiles on anyone below (or haul up the furniture: lords often carried their furniture from castle to castle, and it might not go up spiral stairs). Traces of a similar balcony exist higher up on the south face above the geo. Beyond the tower a passage leads down the narrow promontory between ruined buildings, in two of which one comes suddenly on steep stairs or shafts giving access to the sea, one halfway along and one at the far end.
The castle and the cliffs are dangerous and unsuitable for children.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Highlands’, (1995).
