Tour Scotland Travel Video Winter Clunie Castle Clunie Loch Perthshire

Tour Scotland travel video Blog of Clunie Castle on an artificial island in Clunie Loch on ancestry visit to Perthshire, Scotland. Clunie Castle was an L-plan tower house built by George Brown, Bishop of Dunkeld between 1485 and 1514 predominantly to serve as a hunting lodge but perhaps also to secure the area against robbers that apparently had become established in the region. Rather than re-use the earlier site on the Hill of Clunie, the new tower was sited upon an artificial island within Loch of Clunie. The new structure was built from stone quarried from the former fortification and consisted of a three storey (plus attic) rectangular tower with an adjoined stair wing. The ground floor comprised of storerooms and a kitchen, the first floor was the Great Hall whilst the upper level and attic were used as accommodation. In 1507 money was provided for construction of St Catherine's Chapel adjacent to the tower. During the 1560s vast tracts of ecclesiastical property passed into secular control as the Scottish Reformation swept through the country. In anticipation Robert Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld granted the property to his kinsman, Robert Crichton, Lord Advocate of Scotland. Clunie Castle was upgraded again in the eighteenth century to enhance its comfort. Larger windows were fitted to the main block and the internal arrangements were reconfigured. A new kitchen range was built adjoined to the tower on the north side which was presumably built over St Catherine's Chapel. Clunie Castle was gutted by fire in the twentieth century and thereafter became a roofless ruin. It was never rebuilt.

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