Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 34 on 30/08/2007.

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600 years of history

Charles Douglas visits Brodick Castle on the Isle of Arran, home of the Dukes of Hamilton

The island of Arran is the most southerly of Scotland’s inhabited islands and sits in the Firth of Clyde between Ayrshire and Kintyre. So the first thing you have to do before planning a day visit to Brodick Castle is to check out the ferry times from Ardrossan. Better still, make it an overnight stay as Arran has many beautiful distractions to explore.

Brodick Castle itself is situated one and a half miles from the ferry terminal, and visitors can either catch the bus which drops them at the entrance or walk along the part road/part footpath.

During the centuries, the various fortifications here were destroyed and rebuilt many times, their origins lying in the fifth century when the first Scots arrived from Ireland to create the Kingdom of Dalriada. Since then, the strategic situation of Brodick (meaning ‘Broad Bay’) at the foot of the Goatfell mountain, and much fought over by Norse Invaders, the kings of the Isle of Man, and the Lords of the Isles, has never been in doubt.

But it was not until 1503, when the island and its earldom were granted by King James IV to his cousin James, 2nd Lord Hamilton, that it came into its own. Brodick Castle, at this stage, was built as a tower house, and over the following century attacked by Clan Maclean, Clan Campbell and the English, especially when the 2nd Earl of Arran was Regent of Scotland during the infancy of Mary Queen of Scots. It was he who negotiated Mary’s marriage to the Dauphin of France, for which he was created Duke of.....

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By Charles Douglas

Section : Scotland Houses

Page number : 14