Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1018749
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018749
At the north-eastern end of Loch Awe the impressive ruin of Kilchurn Castle is situated on a small rocky outcrop almost surrounded by the waters of the loch. Loch Awe was clearly an important route in historical times, as probably in the prehistoric period, and there are several castles along it including Fincharn (NM 898043) and Innis Chonnell (NM 976119), but the strategic importance ofKilchurn to the Campbells of Glenorchy with estates both in Loch Awe and Perthshire was considerable. The surviving remains belong to two distinct schemes of construction: a tower-house built in the middle of the 15th century by Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy; and the addition of ranges of barracks within a defensive scheme that had corner towers built by John, 1st Earl of Breadalbane in the last decade of the 17th century.
The tower-house, now an empty shell, has five storeys, the lowest of which is a vaulted cellar, with what was doubtless a prison on its south-east side. The main apartment was the first-floor hall, probably entered from a doorway into the courtyard by means of a wooden stair; there is also a narrow stair from the cellar. The separate staircases to the upper floors are within the angles of the walls.
One of the most dramatic features of the castle as it survives today are the dominant circular angle towers on the north and south flanks; these are the main architectural embellishments of the late 17th century barrack ranges. The barracks played their part intermittently in the military politics of the next sixty years, but the castle was struck by lightning in the 1760s and was not subsequently refurbished. The energies of the Earl of Breadalbane were devoted to his castle and estates at Taymouth in Perthshire.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Argyll and the Western Isles’, (1985).
