The Castles of Scotland by Martin Coventry | Goblinshead | A comprehensive guide to 4,100 castles, towers, historic houses, stately homes and family lands
The Castles of Scotland by Martin Coventry | Goblinshead | A comprehensive guide to 4,100 castles, towers, historic houses, stately homes and family lands
The Castles of Scotland
The Castles of Scotland 

Finlarig Castle

Stirling & Clackmannanshire: About 0.5 miles north-east of Killin, on minor road east of A827, at  west end of Loch Tay, east of the River Lochay, at Finlarig Castle.

 

Ruin or site   NN 575338   OS: 51   FK21 8TL

 

OPEN: Access at all reasonable times: view from exterior as dangerously ruined.

Finlarig Castle, an atmospheric overgrown ruinous old tower house with a derelict mausoleum in a pretty wooded spot, built by the Campbells and at Killin in Stirlingshire in central Scotland. Finlarig Castle (© Martin Coventry)

Substantial remains survive of Finlarig Castle, an overgrown 17th-century Z-plan tower house of three storeys, in an atmospheric wooded location. A ruined square tower with shot-holes survives, along with a larger rectangular block, although another tower has been demolished. A passage leads past two vaulted cellars to the kitchen.

Plan of Finlarig Castle, an atmospheric overgrown ruinous old tower house with a derelict mausoleum in a pretty wooded spot, built by the Campbells and at Killin in Stirlingshire in central Scotland. Finlarig Castle: plan (MacGibbon and Ross)

There was an armorial panel over the entrance with the date 1609. ‘Finlarig’ is depicted on Pont’s map of Loch Tay as a tower.

Finlarig Castle, an atmospheric overgrown ruinous old tower house with a derelict mausoleum in a pretty wooded spot, built by the Campbells and at Killin in Stirlingshire in central Scotland. Finlarig Castle (MacGibbon and Ross)

The lands were held by the Menzies family, but the castle was built in 1621-9 by the Campbell ‘Black Duncan of the Cowl’ or ‘Black Duncan of the Castles’. In 1645 an Ordinance anent the garrison houses for the Highland regiment mentions the house of Finlarig. Parliament was summoned to appear here in 1651, but only three members turned up. Rob Roy MacGregor visited about 1713.

Finlarig Castle, an atmospheric overgrown ruinous old tower house with a derelict mausoleum in a pretty wooded spot, built by the Campbells and at Killin in Stirlingshire in central Scotland. Finlarig Castle (© Martin Coventry)

Close by is said to be a beheading pit, containing a block and a sunken cavity for the head. Noble folk were executed in the pit, while the common people were hanged on a neighbouring oak tree. The pit may in fact be a water collection tank – but this does not make such a good story. This branch of the family became Earls of Breadalbane.

Carved stones, Finlarig Castle, an atmospheric overgrown ruinous old tower house with a derelict mausoleum in a pretty wooded spot, built by the Campbells and at Killin in Stirlingshire in central Scotland. Finlarig Castle: carved stones (Eyre-Todd, 1937)
Finlarig Castle, an atmospheric overgrown ruinous old tower house with a derelict mausoleum in a pretty wooded spot, built by the Campbells and at Killin in Stirlingshire in central Scotland. Finlarig Castle (old postcard)

There are the remains of a derelict mausoleum close by, which was the burial place of the Campbells of Breadalbane, and there was probably originally a chapel here, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The two gravestones are for Sir Gavin Campbell, 17th of Glenorchy, who died in 1922, and his wife Alma Graham, who died in 1932.

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