Castle Urquhart and Loch Ness, Scotland

Castle Urquhart, Loch Ness

Between 1200 and 1600 Castle Urquhart served as a magnificent Medieval fortress on Loch Ness, rising from the Great Glen.  It’s history, like most of Scotland’s, is bloody and the castle changed hands between the English and Scottish many times as well as being the subject of skirmishes and invasions by Scottish clans particularly the Grants and MacDonalds.   In 1689 the last Stewart King James VII of Scotland was exiled and the Grants sided with William of Orange and held off a garrison of Jacobite supporters.  When the Grant soldiers left they destroyed the castle to prevent the Jacobite reoccupation.  The castle was never repaired and between plundering and weather it was reduced over the next few hundred years to ruin.