Qualla: Invergarry Castle

Invergarry Castle: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ronnie leask, CC BY-SA 2.0. According to clan tradition, the castle that rises above Loch Oich was built by men. Not by labourers or by quarrymen, but by a human chain of MacDonells passing stones one by one from the slopes of Ben Tee, the mountain that broods to the southwest. That story may or may not be literal, but the castle that resulted was real enough: a six-storey L-plan tower house on a rock called Creagan an Fhithich, the Raven's Rock, overlooking the narrow neck of water that is now the Caledonian Canal's highest point. It survived a sacking by Cromwell. It survived Cumberland's gunpowder. Today it survives only because Historic Environment Scotland has inserted steel beams into the ruins.

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Image: ronnie leask | CC BY-SA 2.0

Invergarry Castle: A Fortress for the Glengarry MacDonells

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Warren Williams (signature on painting), Public domain. The site had been fortified before, but the present castle dates from after 1602, when raiders from the Clan Mackenzie burned Strome Castle on Loch Carron. The MacDonells of Glengarry, a powerful branch of Clan Donald, responded by hardening their seat on the Raven's Rock. The co...

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Image: Warren Williams (signature on painting) | Public domain

Invergarry Castle: Burned by Cromwell, Held for the Stuarts

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Glover, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1654, during the wars of the three kingdoms, troops under General Monck attacked the castle on Oliver Cromwell's orders and burned it down. The MacDonells repaired it. By 1688 the family was holding the castle for King James VII of Scotland against the new monarchs William and...

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Image: Tim Glover | CC BY-SA 2.0

Invergarry Castle: What Cumberland Did

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MacGibbon & Ross, CC0. After Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland set about systematically dismantling Highland power. His troops reached Invergarry and tried to blow the castle up. The thick walls would not entirely yield. So the engineers settled for what military historians call slighting: removing the ...

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Image: MacGibbon & Ross | CC0

Invergarry Castle: A French Engineer's Drawing

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Newman, CC BY-SA 2.0. We know how the castle looked because of an unlikely document. In 1714, with another Jacobite rising looming, a French engineer named Brigadier General Lewis Petit des Etans was sent north by the Board of Ordnance to survey buildings of military significance. He compiled at least...

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Image: Rob Newman | CC BY-SA 2.0

Invergarry Castle: Steel Beams and a Hotel

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sheila Conway, CC BY-SA 4.0. Around 2000 the north staircase, the last upstanding internal element, collapsed. Historic Scotland organised a programme of consolidation in 2007, inserting stabilising beams to keep the remaining walls upright. The work is described in detail in Renewed Life for Scottish Castle...

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Image: Sheila Conway | CC BY-SA 4.0