On Friday, July4th, we drove through the Highlands, and decided to head south to the village of Oban. On the way, we came across Castle Stalker.
Castle Stalker is located 25 miles north of
Oban on the west coast of Scotland.
Built around 1540 by Duncan Stewart of Appin, this much-photographed castle was gifted by him to James IV for use as a hunting lodge. In fact, its Gaelic name
Caisteal Stalcair translates literally as 'Castle of the Hunter'. It sits at the mouth of Loch Laich (by Loch Linnhe) on a rocky islet known as the Rock of the Cormorants which is also the battle cry of the Stewarts of Appin.
The castle, like so many in Scotland, has had a turbulent history. One 17th century Stewart gambled it away to a Campbell for an eight-oared galley. During the 1745 Jacobite Rising it was used as a garrison for troops.
Abandoned around 1780, it lost its roof shortly before 1831 and was restored from its ruinous state in the late 1960s by the late Lt. Col. Stewart Allward whose family still owns the castle.
