Urquhart Castle โ€” castle ruin
Image by Maikiua from Pixabay

Urquhart Castle

  • 2 min read
  • 57.324ยฐ N 4.442ยฐ W

Interesting facts

  • In the Great Raid of 1545 the MacDonalds carried off about 2,000 cattle, hundreds of other animals, furniture, cannon and even the castle gates.
  • King David II spent the summer of 1342 hunting at Urquhart, the only reigning monarch known to have stayed there.
  • In 1689โ€“1690 a garrison of 200 Grant soldiers held the castle against some 500 Jacobites until the Jacobite defeat at Cromdale.
  • The name comes from the early form Airdchartdan, combining Gaelic and Brittonic words for a promontory and a thicket or wood.
  • According to Adomnรกn's Life of Columba, the saint converted a Pictish nobleman named Emchath and his household in this area in the late sixth century.
  • In 1395 Domhnall of Islay seized the castle from the Crown and held on to it for more than fifteen years.
  • The Grant Tower measures about 12 by 11 metres with walls up to 3 metres thick, and originally rose five storeys.
  • Laid out roughly in a figure of eight, the castle stretches about 150 metres along the shore and is defended by a dry ditch up to 30 metres wide.
  • A 16th-century water gate in the eastern wall of the upper bailey opens directly onto the shore of Loch Ness.
  • A full-size working replica of a medieval trebuchet, originally built for a television documentary, stands near the path to the castle.

Why it is worth it

Urquhart Castle owes its fame as much to its position as to its stones. It stands on Strone Point, a rocky headland that pushes out into Loch Ness from the north-western shore, so the ruins are wrapped on three sides by dark water and look straight down the length of the Great Glen. The site was fortified long before the castle: archaeological evidence points to a Pictish fort here between the fifth and eleventh centuries, and early medieval accounts of Saint Columba's journeys describe his visit to this area in the late sixth century.

The castle itself goes back to the thirteenth century, when Alexander II granted the lands to Thomas de Lundin and a first stronghold was raised on the motte at the south-west end of the site. It enters written history in 1296, when Edward I of England captured it at the start of the Wars of Scottish Independence, and in 1307 Robert the Bruce took it back as a royal fortress. Through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the castle was repeatedly raided by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles in their struggle for the earldom of Ross. In 1509 James IV granted it to the Grants, who rebuilt and strengthened it, yet still suffered the MacDonalds' Great Raid of 1545.

The castle's last military role came after the Glorious Revolution. In 1692 its government garrison blew up the gatehouse to stop Jacobites from using the castle, and in 1715 a storm brought down part of the Grant Tower. What remains is a romantic ruin in the best sense: the shattered gatehouse, the curtain walls following the rock, the foundations of halls and kitchens, and the storm-damaged Grant Tower, which frames the classic view along the loch. The water stretches away between steep wooded hills, and on a still day the reflection of the ruin lies unbroken on the surface.

Historic Environment Scotland looks after the castle, and a visitor centre was added in the 1990s. In 2025 it welcomed more than 466,000 visitors, and its image of a broken tower on Loch Ness has become one of the defining pictures of the Highlands.

Getting there

Urquhart Castle is on the shore of Loch Ness near the village of Drumnadrochit, about 21 km south-west of Inverness. Inverness Airport (INV) is about 34 km away. Coach tours run from Inverness bus station, and cruises on Loch Ness land passengers at the castle's own jetty, which is the most memorable way to arrive.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in the Scottish Highlands 11The Most Beautiful Places in Scotland 39The Most Beautiful Places in the United Kingdom 154The Most Beautiful Castle Ruins in the United Kingdom 7The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Scotland 8The Most Beautiful Castle Ruins 18The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in the United Kingdom 24The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302

From the encyclopaedia

Urquhart Castle is a ruined castle that sits beside Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland. The castle is on the A82 road, 21 kilometres (13ย mi) southwest of Inverness and two kilometres east of Drumnadrochit. It is a scheduled monument and is one of the most-visited castles in Scotland, receiving 466,420 visitors in 2025.

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