Lochaline castle.

Built around the late 1400s and sited on a rocky crag [other side] above the mouth of the river Aline it was intended to dominate the head of the loch and to control the land route inland along the river.

Over the centuries it has been altered, burnt,  restoredand neglected.. It was brought to its present very pleasing appearance in 2000 and is now a  family home of the Raven family who own the Ardtornish Estate.

And at the other end of the social scale! That is not quite true. This “house” though lacking windows is at least built of stone. A large portion of the population would have lived in sod huts. Also the stone construction, and not forming part of an obvious village,  implies a stronger proprietorial interest in the land than most people had. This is at the top end of Scotstown On the road to Polloch.

Note;-

This is actually a slightly puzzling structure. The nature of the stonework , the fact that its back wall is a rock outcrop, and its relationship to the road, if as built,  may mean that it is not part of the continuum of domestic dwellings but may have served another purpose.  

Castle Tioram, 13 th century, continuously modified according to fashion until abandonment in the 18th century One of the great Gàidhealtachd strongholds, formerly the administrative centre of Garmoran and the seat of the Clanranalds. Strategically sited on a rocky outcrop in the throat of Loch Moidart, the castle overlooks Eilean Shona and the Shiel estuary in a landscape of superb Picturesque appeal enhanced by 19th century planting. Typical of its genre, it is enclosed by a great curtain wall of probably 13 th century date, the round-angled, battered walls of which surround the highest part of the tidal isle. To judge from an odd crenellation, this has been heightened at a later date. The enclosure is entered through a simple, landward-facing gate, topped by a small machicolation reached by a continuous wall-walk (two other postern gates are blocked up). On the east is a small, simple tower, said to have been built in about 13 50 by Amy MacRuari, mother of Ranald, the progenitor of the Clanranalds. This was raised in height in the 16th century. Sometime in the early 17th century, the building along the south side, possibly the original feasting hall, was converted into a "main house" of spacious apartments above cellars. This may date from around 1616, when Clanranald, along with other chiefs, entered into an agreement with James VI's government to build "civile and comelie houses for thair duellingis" and "make policie and planting about them". The south range was further remodelled, perhaps c.1668, when Donald, the 13 th chief, wrote "I am doing what I can to repaire my old house of Castle Tyrholme" but "I am very scarce of deiles [deals] to it". Its south west section acquired large window openings and a projecting gabled stair tower on the courtyard elevation, and an extra storey embellished with corbelled bartizans and castellations for display; it used the old wall-walk as a promenade overlooking the sea. In the corner between the old tower house and the later south range was the kitchen. All these buildings would have been harled.* Foundations of other structures, probably service buildings, line the curtain wall. Stirring and impossibly romantic, the ruin of Tioram stands as a potent symbol of the power struggles and political differences that have fuelled emotions since the Middle Ages. Today it has become the cause célèbre of a new brand of warfare - that waged between the opposing factions of the conservation lobby. The debate centres round the owner Lex Brown's thwarted application to restore and reinhabit the castle; widely supported plans by A.R.P. Lorimer & Assocs were rejected in 2002, after a notorious public enquiry.

* Suspect limewash.ed, but do buy the book.

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by, and copyright of, Mary Miers, 2008.  Published by the Rutland Press.

Castle Toiram, pronounced Chirrum , as it is today. I am a reconstructionalist. I feel that Gothic melancholy does nothing for a very beautiful spot which Sir Walter Scott rather oddly described it as the second most beautiful place in Scotland.[ To give scale, the white line to the right of the castle is the height of a man.]

The castle as it might have appeared in its prime. [ In reality there would have been fewer, if any, trees. There would be cattle and sheep grazing, a scattering of hutments and possible some arable. There are indications of rig and furrowto the SE of the castle.  One would also expect a miscellany of boats on the water and drawn up on the beach. ]

A romantic reconstruction of the firing of the castle by  its then owner when he left to join the ill fated 1715 Jaccobite rebellion. Not the expensive gesture it seems for the building had been crumbling for some decades; and for a rebel any castle within range of British naval artillery was not a place of safety.

A brief  history

The lighthouse at Ardnamurchan Point, its architecture showing strong “Egyptian” influence. The most westerly point on the UK mainland, and it feels it. Rock, thin acid soil, no trees and a vast panorama of sea and distant islands. Very austere, possibly because everything that is not tied  has long since been blown away. A good little cafe though and lots of interesting lighthouse stuff.

What impressed me most, and this on a good summer’s day, was that the keepers maintained a vegetable garden; after, I assume, collecting enough soil.

A bait bowl or mortar, dated as from the Scandinavian period of dominance of the area,  just above high tide mark on the east side of the “bay of the flies” a little east of Salen.. No really ranking with the Colossus of Rhodes as a major antiquity but it will be here a long time yet.

This is much more interesting and indeed enigmatic. It is a quern stone for the hand grinding of corn. The grain was poured into the hole  in the centre [top] and the stone rotated by a peg inserted in the hole your can just see at 11 o’clock . The oddity is its situation in the Strontian Burial ground. Was it left as a memento of the occupier of the grave? Was it intended as a marker for someone who could not afford a grave stone?*Or was it a protest against the ban on quern stones introduced to force the crofters to use the Laird’s water mill?**though I am not sure that that harsh and selfish measure was enforced in this area.

* There were in the 1970s, under the bushes in the churchyard across the river, some rounded beach stones with initials crudely scratched upon them.

** You can see the faint remains, just below the old bridge at the church, of one of the two mill dams on the Strontian river.  

Another puzzle. This is the mound in the Burial Ground. It is within the flood plain of the Strontian river so, if natural, would have to be of some highly resistant material to survive; but since graves have been cut into it this is obviously not the case. This could be the oldest man made structure you will see in the area, a stone age burial cairn which has survived in use almost up to the present day? Burying into an ancient cairn might have superstitious significance or it might simply be that it was always dry digging an a wet climate. .

Two views of Ardtornish house at the head of Loch Aline. Built with the wealth of a 18th Century English industrialist and now making a living as holiday flats. The lawns and gardens whose natural inclination is to be a swamp have been restored at great labour. There is much to be said for the civilising effect of lawns.

Farm buildings at Ardtornish from the days when you employed  architects to design your barns and there were architects that could.

The most westerly traffic lights in mainland Britain. No trees, no flowers, no birds even, and this is high summer. But just out of sight round the corner there is a battered residential caravan.

Someone spends their holidays here?

A cast iron mile stone on what was once the public road to Dorlin and a ferry to Kilchoan.  Now in parts a barely discernable path. Dorlin is to the left.