Field Visit
Date April 1984
Event ID 1082673
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082673
The much-altered and extended remains of this late medieval tower-house stand on a level tongue of land overlooking the head of Loch Beag, an inlet of the Sound of Jura about 3km from the SW end of the Craignish peninsula. In its existing form it comprises work of three main periods, together with at least two phases of alterations in the 20th century. The ground floor and part of the first floor of the three-storeyed tower-house occupying the S part of the site appear to represent work of late 14th- or early 15th-century date, the castle being recorded as incomplete in 1414. The remaining walls of the tower were subsequently reconstructed and the interior remodelled at some date in the 16th or 17th century, judging by a few surviving architectural features. A two-stage N range, in existence in 1797 (en.1), was added to the tower, but in 1837 these additions were replaced by two- and three-storeyed ranges in English Elizabethan style designed by William Burn (en.2), and the upper works of the tower were rebuilt at the same time. These additions have since been reduced to two of the original four bays of the three-storeyed N range, a two-storeyed stair-wing being added against the centre of the new N gable-wall, which was an original internal flue-bearing wall. The crenellated octagonal upper storey of the 1837 entrance-tower has also been reduced in height, while the tower-house itself is now covered with a high hipped roof.
RCAHMS 1992, visited April 1984
[A full architectural description and historical note is provided in RCAHMS 1992, 259-262]
