Ardvreck Castle

Ardvreck Castle is a 15th-century tower house ruin on a rocky promontory reaching into Loch Assynt in the North West Highlands. Built by the MacLeod clan around 1490, it's one of Scotland's most romantically set castle ruins, with the peaks of Quinag and Suilven rising behind it across the wild Assynt landscape.

Ardvreck sits right beside the A837 on the north shore of Loch Assynt, about midway between Ullapool and Lochinver. There's a small car park and it's only a few minutes' walk out to the castle along the lochside, making it an easy North Coast 500 stop to pair with Lochinver and the Assynt peaks.

It's an open ruin with no charge and no visitor facilities, so you're free to explore. Take care around the walls, as the interior stonework is unstable, and expect boggy ground after rain. For most people the exterior and the lochside setting are the real draw.

The MacLeods of Assynt built Ardvreck around 1490. Its most dramatic moment came in 1650, when the Marquess of Montrose took refuge here after his defeat at the Battle of Carbisdale, only for the MacLeods to betray him and hand him to the Scottish Covenanters. He was taken to Edinburgh and executed. The nearby ruin of Calda House, a later MacKenzie mansion, stands at the water's edge.