Ardvreck Castle

The remote parish of Assynt in Sutherland has a long and varied history stretching back many thousands of years. Early humans used the famous bone caves and buried their dead in the large cairns visible throughout this dramatic landscape. From later in prehistory come cist burials, brochs, duns and crannogs.

Fragments of a Celtic cross point to an early medieval Christian presence beside Loch Assynt and it is this area around Inchnadamph that became the heart of medieval Assynt. Here you will find the ruined castle and burial vault of the Macleods of Assynt, the gaunt remains of the grand Calda House of their Mackenzie successors, the old parish church and the remains of flourishing pre-clearance settlements. After the clearances, Inchnadamph diminished in local importance but became a mecca for nineteenth-century tourists, naturalists and artists.

A cairn pays tribute to those who struggled to unravel the complexities of the local geology and there is also a memorial to the aircrew who lost their lives on Ben More Assynt during WW II.