Urquhart Castle

Urquhart Castle dominates a rocky promontory jutting into Loch Ness. That promontory has hosted some famous names in its long history. St Columba visited with peaceful intent around AD 580. Not so the English, who seized the castle in 1296. Nor the MacDonalds, Lords of the Isles,  who stormed through the glen time and again in the later Middle Ages, ruling with a rod of iron from the mighty castle. In the twilight of its days as a seat of the chief of Clan Grant, Urquhart continued to prove its worth. It was last garrisoned in 1692, and legend claims that the towering gatehouse was blown up so that the castle could never again be a military stronghold. Over a thousand years of stirring history were buried beneath the rubble.