Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 563678
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/563678
Invergarry Castle, 17th century 'Glengaries new House' (wall thicknesses suggest the reworking of an earlier building), burned and 'defaced' by General Monk in 1654, restored by mason Robert Nicholson c.1670, but again damaged and then repaired after the 1715 and 1745 uprisings. Rising above Loch Oich sheer from Creagan an Fhithich (Raven's Rock - the Macdonells' war cry), this lofty, L-plan 'extraordinary strong house - fortified and cannot be taken without great cannon' had a martial presence that belied its internal splendour. A regal stairway rose in the (now largely destroyed) west jamb to the principal floor, at which level the entire (unvaulted) main range was occupied by a colonnaded apartment overlooking the river, with circular 'privy' stair tower on the north-east corner; guest chambers above the principal stair. In the angle, a six-storey square stair tower and a turret stair served the upper floors.
[In the 1690s Invergarry Castle was at the mercy of garrisoning Government troops (as were Tioram and other strongholds in the area), with Glengarry petitioning unsuccessfully in 1704 for the return of his home and compensation for damage done by the 'disorderly carriage of the souldiers'. In 1715 he overpowered the outstation at Invergarry, but in 1716 the castle was again seized and accidentally burned following the Jacobite uprising, In 1727, Thomas Rawlinson, an iron master of the York Buildings Co, did up the dilapidated structure for his residence, but was later expelled by Glengarry, who disliked seeing a Sassanach occupying his home and took up residence here again in 1731. BPC stayed here before and after Culloden and it was destroyed by Cumberland in 1746.]
Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
