The criteria for an iconic castle is quite simple: beautiful surroundings are always a given, but it needs to tell you story the instant you see it. Kilchurn (pronounces Kill-WHO’RN) may not have a roof, complete walls or anything more than a basic shape and a couple of fully intact chimneys, but every cracked wall, wee window and blackened stone tells the stories of a castle that played countless parts in a history we look back on in wonder.

It may now sit in ruin off the forever lapping banks of loch awe, never to be returned to its glory days, but every single person that takes the long path up to the front gate, or the boggy mud walkway from the small farmland just across the water, will gawk in wonder at the stature of what remains, and imagine how it felt to see him in his prime.

In the 15th century, Kilchurn was built as the first of many castles by the Campbells of Glenorchy, a powerful branch of the Campbell clan, and played a key role in asserting their dominance over the area. The Campbells attempted, unsuccessfully, to sell the castle to the government after they moved in 1740 to the reconstructed Taymouth Castle.

Kilchurn was renovated frequently, being converted into a barracks, capable of housing over 200 troops, to being used as a government garrison during the 1745 Jacobite rising, and eventually completely abandoned following a devastating lightening strike which left a turret tower stuck upside down in the main courtyard, which is still there to this day.

On a still day the reflections of the castle bounce off the water creating an ethereal vision of the landscape. Early mornings will see beautiful lights on the mountains in the background and a lucky few will witness inverted clouds pass through the region during early mornings.

As iconic castles go, Kilchurn is worthy of any list.