Publication Account

Date 1985

Event ID 1018755

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018755

RCAHMS: Exploring Scotland's Heritage - Argyll and the Western Isles, 1985

The remains of Tarbert Castle are not, perhaps, remarkable in themselves, but the individual elements are unusual, and the view from the castle over the harbour is a panoramic one. The position is of some importance commanding the porterage from Tarbert to West Loch Tarbert, enshrined in one of the earliest memories of Scottish history of many a schoolboy as the place where Magnus Barelegs dragged his vessel across the isthmus to claim Kintyre in about 1098. This was symbolically repeated by Robert Bruce in the period after the Battle ofBannockburn, when the king is known to have taken possession of the castle. The castle occupies the summit of a flattish-topped rocky ridge and comprises three main parts; the most prominent, the tower-house, is the most recent, dating to about AD 1500.

The earliest castle occupied the highest part of the ridge to the south-west of the tower and is a simple rectangular enclosure some 38m by 33m internally. Only the lowest courses now survive (and these are best seen in winter or spring when the vegetation is low); they indicate a castle with four ranges of buildings with an entrance on the north-east flank. The plan of the castle may be paralleled by royal castles in the east of Scotland and by analogy it has been suggested, in the absence of documentary evidence, that the castle results from a royal expedition to Kintyre in the early 13th century.

The lower portion of the summit area to the north-east was enclosed by a wall about a century later, appreciably increasing the size of the castle; little survives of this phase except parts of two circular projecting towers on the north-east flank It is likely that this work dates to the period when Robert took the castle intending it to be a power-base in the area. It is hard to believe this from the surviving remains, but the area enclosed by the wall could have held many timber buildings; building accounts for 1325-6 show that the work on the castle included not only the walls, but also the construction of a hall with clay and sand walls, timber uprights and a thatched roof From about 1329 Tarbert was established as a royal burgh, perhaps originally situated in the area just to the south-west of the castle.

The castle was the scene of another royal visit in 1494, and James IV was probably responsible for initiating the building of the tower-house, of which only the cellar and the north-east and north-west walls still remain.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Argyll and the Western Isles’, (1985).