Scotland · Partial ruin
Carrick Castle
Carrick Castle is a 14th-century rectangular tower house on a rocky promontory on the west shore of Loch Goil in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. Built by the Campbells, it consists of a tall stone keep with a later 17th-century wing and was an occasional royal hunting lodge and residence before partial destruction in the 17th century; it is a scheduled monument and Category A listed building.
Its prime
1563
Today
Partial ruin
As it stood in 1563
What Carrick Castle looked like in its prime.
A tall rectangular stone tower house standing on a low rocky peninsula into Loch Goil, roughly 66 by 38 feet in plan and about 64 feet high, with thick 7-foot masonry walls. The main block rises two floors above a central great hall and is joined on one side by a smaller 17th-century appendage. The stone is dark grey-brown coursed masonry; windows are few and narrow, and a small chimney is set into one window recess. The peninsula meets the water with a small shore and pier.
Its story
The story of Carrick Castle.
The Campbells of Loch Goil, Late 1300s–1563
Carrick Castle was probably built by the Campbells in the last decades of the fourteenth century, when the family was dominant on this stretch of Argyll. The rectangular tower house occupies a rocky peninsula on the west shore of Loch Goil, once defended to landward by a ditch and drawbridge; its walls run seven feet thick and rise to 64 feet, with two floors set above a central great hall and a small chimney built, curiously, into a window recess.
James IV used the castle as a hunting lodge, and Mary, Queen of Scots stayed there on 20 and 21 June 1563.
Argyll's Rising, 1685
During Argyll's Rising in 1685, when Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, attempted to overthrow King James VII, Captain Thomas Hamilton of HMS Kingfisher reported that the castle had been burnt and its walls reduced sufficiently to make it useless to the Campbell forces. Legend holds that the Kingfisher bombarded the castle, badly damaging the keep and stripping its roof.
Decline, Sale to the Murrays of Dunmore, and Restoration
Carrick was occupied only intermittently afterwards before it was sold to the Murrays, Earls of Dunmore. A smaller seventeenth-century wing stands alongside the original tower. The keep was a ruin for many years before it passed into private ownership and restoration began. Historic Environment Scotland has scheduled it as a monument since 1966 and listed it Category A since 1971.
Step inside
8 places to explore in 1563.
The record describes 8 distinct spots at Carrick Castle, including 4 interiors: central great hall, upper living chambers above the great hall, interior of 17th-century appendage and more. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Clans who held Carrick Castle.
The families that held Carrick Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
From the archive
Carrick Castle on paper: the measured plan and period views.
The survey plan and photographs below are the ground truth this page's reconstructions are checked against, drawn and photographed while the castle was still a working garrison. Every image is public-domain or openly licensed, with its source named.
Carrick Castle, Lochgoil (i.e. Loch Goil), Scotland-LCCN2002695018
ca. 1890-1900 · Photochrom Prints Collection (via Wikimedia Commons)
Public domain
Fig. 127.—Carrick Castle, from South-East.
1889 · MacGibbon & Ross, vol. 3 (1889)
Public domain
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