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Field Visit
Date May 1982
Event ID 1082658
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082658
This castle stands on a rocky promontory on the N side of Loch Crinan commanding a wide prospect on all except the N and NW approaches. To the S of the castle the promontory extends into the loch as a low rocky spit reached by a causeway and usable as a boat-landing in calm weather. There is a more sheltered beach and boat-landing on the E side of the headland. The landward approach is now by a driveway and an artificial terraced platform, but the castle may at one time have been protected by a natural gully or ditch, separating it from a higher knoll to the NE. There are the footings of an oblong building of bicameral plan and indeterminate age on the summit of this knoll.
The castle consists of an irregular round-angled polygonal enclosure incorporating a three-storeyed L-plan tower in the S angle. It is roofed and inhabited, and modern ranges of buildings extend along the internal NW and NE faces of the courtyard. The sequence of building is reasonably clear, but precise criteria for dating the earliest phases of construction are lacking. The enclosure itself probably belongs to the late medieval period, and the general layout and character of the castle are more analogous to the 15th-century Breachacha and Kisimul Castles than to earlier enclosure-castles such as Mingary and Tioram (en.1). The existing tower-house can be ascribed to about 1600, probably replacing an earlier structure in a similar position, and the manner in which it has been built against and over the top of the earlier enclosure is particularly evident on the SW wall. A scheme of restoration and alterations was undertaken after 1796 when the castle was purchased by Neil Malcolm of Poltalloch. Following the abandonment of Poltalloch House (No. 177), the buildings of the castle were further modernised and extended between 1954 and 1957 by Col. George Malcolm of Poltalloch.
RCAHMS 1992, visited May 1982
[A full architectural description and historical note is provided in RCAHMS 1992, 276-282)
