Rosyth Castle

Rosyth was built around 1450 as a secure residence by Sir David Stewart, who had been granted the Barony of Rosyth in 1428. It originally stood on a small island in the Firth of Forth, accessible only at low tide, and the 58-foot tower house was enlarged and extended in the 16th and early 17th centuries.

In 1572 the castle was attacked by men from Blackness Castle on the southern shore of the Forth, and in 1651 it was occupied by Oliver Cromwell's army after the Battle of Inverkeithing. It remained a Stewart residence until sold in the late seventeenth century to David Drummond of Invermay, ultimately ending up with the Earl of Hopetoun; from the eighteenth century it stood unoccupied, large parts of its stonework re-used in other structures.

The castle became Admiralty property in 1903, and land reclamation stripped away its waterfront, leaving it marooned within Rosyth Naval Dockyard. Plans to restore the building came to nothing and it was simply made safe; only the tower and north courtyard wall stand much above ground-floor level. About half a mile north survives a well-preserved sixteenth-century dovecot with a crow-stepped gable roof and carved heads at two corners.