Urquhart Castle

Urquhart Castle stands on a rocky promontory on the west shore of Loch Ness, fifteen miles south-west of Inverness on the A82 to Fort William. The castle is among the largest in Scotland by enclosed area and one of the most-visited Historic Environment Scotland sites, with stonework spanning the 13th to the 17th centuries, Grant Tower (the five-storey north tower), the gatehouse, the great hall, the chapel and a long defensive curtain wall trace the visible footprint across the headland.

The site changed hands repeatedly through the medieval and early modern wars. Originally built in the 13th century on the site of an earlier early-medieval fort, the castle was captured and re-captured through the Wars of Independence (held by Edward I’s English garrison in 1296, recovered by Andrew de Moray for the Bruce in 1297), held by the Crown across the late medieval period, and changed hands repeatedly through the MacDonald Lordship of the Isles raids in the 15th century. The surviving footprint is largely the 16th-century rebuild; the 1692 partial demolition by the departing Jacobite garrison, intentional, to prevent later Government use, left the castle the picturesque ruin it remains today.

The visitor centre, set discreetly into the hillside above the castle, carries the full chronology, a short cinematic film, and the on-display Urquhart trebuchet replica. The Loch Ness setting is the central draw: Urquhart Bay is the deepest section of the loch (around 230 metres) and the surrounding views down the Great Glen are among the most familiar in Scotland.

Open year-round; paid-entry with standard HES membership benefit.