Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scottish Castles

Forse Castle

I recently created the article Forse Castle from the original title of Forse, if anyones interested, theres much more info to be added. QuintusPetillius (talk) 17:39, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Borve Castle, Sutherland

I recently created the article Borve Castle, Sutherland if anyones interested. It was a stronghold of the Clan Mackay. QuintusPetillius (talk) 20:41, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

After reading the article, I am left wondering when Borve Castle was built. Have there been any excavations on the site? Is the exact location know? If so, a coordinates template could be added to the article (or a map) so that the reader knows where it is as not everyone knows where Sutherland is, and the link would allow a reader to find maps of the site. Nev1 (talk) 20:47, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, since there's no image of the castle (have you tried geograph and flickr?) some details of the structure would be useful. Was it made from stone (presumably since it was still in use in the 16th century)? Is there a particular type of castle that Brove can be linked to (eg: motte-and-bailey, tower house, quadrangular castle etc) to give the reader how it may have looked? Nev1 (talk) 21:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Well I'm still searching for information on the specific details of the building. There is a link to the Sutherland page.QuintusPetillius (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

List of castles in Scotland

Although it is difficult to compile a comprehensive list of gazetteer of castles because of the problem of defining "castle", is there something close of a definitive list? England and Wales are lucky enough to have a study from 1983 by D. J. Cathcart King (although as far as I know the lists on Wikipedia for England and Wales aren't taken from it), but I was wondering if there's something similar for Scotland. If anyone's in the know about it, it would certainly help to be able to say if Wikipedia's list of castles in Scotland is as good as it gets, were it to go to FLC for instance. Nev1 (talk) 20:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Nev must have missed your request. The best resources are Martin Coventry's The Castles of Scotland [1], some 2,700 entries (though it contains entries for non-castle ruins and historic buildings), or the slightly older series of guides by Mike Salter (five volumes cover Scotland, see Folly Publications). Neither is truly "definitive" as you say, but a reasonable yardstick. Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 11:07, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot

User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project. There has been a lot of discussion recently about deleting these unreferenced articles, so it is important that these articles are referenced.

The unreferenced articles related to your project can be found at >>>Wikipedia:WikiProject Scottish Castles/Unreferenced BLPs<<<

If you do not want this wikiproject to participate, please add your project name to this list.

Thank you. Okip 02:50, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I have opted us out since the project has no biographical articles associated with it. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 10:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

thanks for taking the time to comment. To increase the overall number of articles in your project with another bot (in which case you may have unreferenced BLPs--for example, an author who wrote on Scottish castles), you can sign up for User:Xenobot_Mk_V#Instructions. Happy editing. Okip 12:21, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Dunnottar Castle

Whilst working on other things, I came across Dunnottar Castle which is one of the more notable castles but needs a serious copyedit. I removed some of the worst bits, but really it needs attention from someone more familiar than me with the WPSC house style. FlagSteward (talk) 18:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits FlagSteward, Dunnottar has been on my mental 'to do' list longer than I can remember now, along with Dunvegan, Dunrobin, Sween and, oh, lots of others! Will maybe try to push this one up a notch as, like you say, it really is quite important, but I won't make any promises... Regards, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 19:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Horsburgh Castle/Horsbrugh Castle

I was hoping that someone could advise/clarify a particular issue regarding the correct name for Horsburgh Castle/Horsbrugh Castle, Scottich Borders. The main sources used by the article primarily use the name Horsburgh Castle, however it has been brought to my attention that the castle in fact should be known as "Horsbrugh Castle". I am happy to be proven wrong and ask for the article to be moved to "Horsbrugh Castle" if that is correct with a redirect from Horsburgh Castle. Does anyone have any hard copy reference that clarifies this issue? Kind Regards Newm30 (talk) 00:54, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I happen to have a pile of Borders-related books on my desk. Two of them (The Borders Book ed. Donald Omand, and Borders and Berwick by Charles Strang, in the RIAS architecture guide series) mention this place, and both use Horsburgh. Earlier today I reinstated the redirect from Horsbrugh Castle. I dont know which is "correct" but Horsburgh is certainly more common. Regards, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 15:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Possible Creation of WikiProject Tayside and Fife

Hi! I have proposed the creation of WikiProject Tayside and Fife to improve the quality of all of the articles which fall into the scope of the project. I think that some of the articles in the scope of WikiProject Scottish Castles may fit into the scope of the proposed project. I would hope that members of this WikiProject would like to indicate their interest in the project. If you would like to join please add your name on WikiProject Council/Proposals/Tayside and Fife. If the project gets a reasonable amount of interest I will create a draft of the WikiProject (after consultation with editors who are interested) in my userspace and then will create the WikiProject. Thank you. Andrewmc123 15:23, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Scottish Castle articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Scottish Castle articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:36, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 21:07, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Balquhain Castle Article

WikiProject Scottish Castles,

Article: Balquhain Castle

I am trying figure out which period or timeline that this castle was built, the war it was involved in. It's not my area. I thought I'd give it an assessment it, but no idea on the years it was in use. If you take a look at it, and know when or roughly when it was then it would be appreciated. It is a very very short article 5 lines at the most with a picture. Because I can change it once I get feedback. Adamdaley (talk) 15:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Erchless Castle Article

WikiProject Scottish Castles,

Article: Erchless Castle

I am trying figure out which period or timeline that this castle was built, the war it was involved in. It's not my area. I thought I'd give it an assessment it, but no idea on the years it was in use. If you take a look at it, and know when or roughly when it was then it would be appreciated. It is a very very short article 5 lines at the most with a picture. Because I can change it once I get feedback. Adamdaley (talk) 15:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Federate Castle Article

WikiProject Scottish Castles,

Article: Federate Castle

I am trying figure out which period or timeline that this castle was built, the war it was involved in. It's not my area. I thought I'd give it an assessment it, but no idea on the years it was in use. If you take a look at it, and know when or roughly when it was then it would be appreciated. It is a very very short article 5 lines at the most with a picture. Because I can change it once I get feedback. Adamdaley (talk) 15:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Whitefield Castle Article

WikiProject Scottish Castles,

Article: Whitefield Castle

I am trying figure out which period or timeline that this castle was built, the war it was involved in. It's not my area. I thought I'd give it an assessment it, but no idea on the years it was in use. If you take a look at it, and know when or roughly when it was then it would be appreciated. It is a very very short article 5 lines at the most with a picture. Because I can change it once I get feedback. Adamdaley (talk) 15:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Edinburgh Castle

I've nominated Edinburgh Castle for an A class review. Anyone is welcome to make comments at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Edinburgh Castle. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 08:19, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Cawdor Castle

An IP doesn't think that Cawdor Castle's Westlife playing a concert at Cawdor Castle is important and is therefore removing mention of it. Do folks here have an opinion on its inclusion? Nev1 (talk) 20:05, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

The entry is cited and Westlife are clearly noteworthy, so the issue is relevance. I am not a member of this project so I won't bother to pass an opinion here, but unless there is consensus on that page to remove the entry you are well within your rights to restore it. Ben MacDui 08:27, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

The fact that its westlife is ireelevant, but that the place has hosted a concert is an indicator of its present use. If there have been other concerts it would be worth mentioning use of the castle as a venue, but a one-off would be less noteworthy. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 11:19, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Please help get Scottish castles ready for the start of the Wiki Loves Monuments competition on 1st September

In September the UK is taking part for the first time in the international photography competition Wiki Loves Monuments. Participants will be invited to submit pictures of listed buildings of significant importance (category A), as recorded by Historic Scotland. The main external website for competitors can be found here, and you can leave a message there if you have queries about competing. Do please join in, and let people in your local area know of this excellent way in which both existing and new Wiki users can help improve the encyclopaedia by contributing photographs of local listed structures. What about organizing a local Wikimeet to attract new people?

In preparation for the start of the competition on 1st September there is still quite a lot of work to do, and we would like to ask for the help of members of this wikiproject. Your local and expert knowledge will be invaluable in ensuring that the lists of eligible buildings are up to date and correctly formatted. If you look at Listed buildings in the United Kingdom you will see how many structures are included. If you then follow the link to Listed buildings in Scotland, you can get to the detailed lists for your area. Alternatively have a look at the WLM planning table. Can you help to ensure that the lists for your area are up to date and well presented?

Some of the lists have been semi-automatically generated from data provided by Historic Scotland. These use pre formatted templates (eg NS header) which will make it much easier for competition participants to upload their photographs to Commons as an automated process. Please don't change the template structure, as we need to ensure that the templates are properly compatible with the WLM standards that are in use worldwide. The format will allow a bot automatically to collect the information and to put it into the international Monuments Database.

The data still needs the attention of local editors:

• The "title" may need wikilinking to a suitable article name (whether we currently have that article or not). If there are several buildings in one street all of the wikilinks point at an article about the street; however each entry has a separate line in the list.
• The "location" column looks and sorts better if just the parish or town is included (& wikilinked).
• The "date completed" column sometimes has eg "C19" for 19th century, and "C1850" for c. 1850 when the date is uncertain - these need to be corrected manually.
• The "grid ref & lat & long" (which is occasionally missing) may be given to 8 characters — only 6 (grid ref) or 5 (lat & long) are really needed.
• Clicking on the "list entry number" should take you to the data sheet for that entry on the Historic Scotland database which can be checked if needed for details.
• The image column should have a picture added if we already have a suitable image on Commons. (N.B. if you are going to be taking photos yourself for inclusion in the competition don't upload them until September)
• References may be added according to normal WP practice.

For further information, please see Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in the United Kingdom.

If you have any queries, please post them not below but on the Organizers' help page on Commons.

Anything you can do to help improve these lists will be much appreciated. The final deadline for cleaning up is 31st August.

--MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:15, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Gilbertfield castle

Castle built 1607. Mary Queen of Scots died 1587 so questionable how she managed to stay in castle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.153.233 (talk) 11:31, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 05:25, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Scottish Castles at Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:

Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 12:27, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Featured Picture on the front page

POTD

Hi everyone, this Featured Picture of Blackness Castle will be part of the main page on 26th December. If anyone was planning on adding anything to what looks like an already well-sourced article, the next couple of weeks would be a good opportunity ahead of the increased exposure the article will get. Nev1 (talk) 21:44, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Culzean Castle

Wikimedia UK are talking to Culzean Castle about possibly holding an editathon there. It's at an early stage, but would people writing articles related to this project be interested in such an event? Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 13:16, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Loch Leven or Lochleven Castle?

This article title is Loch Leven Castle but the more common usage seems to be Lochleven castle. This is the usage of Historic Scotland who run the site. [1] It is also in Fraser, Antonia. (1970) Mary Queen of Scots as Lochleven which is an important source for the text. Looking at the internet it is only less reputable sources that use Loch Leven Castle. Does anyone know why the article is titled as it is?--Jhood1 (talk) 11:21, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Both Maurice Lindsay, The Castles of Scotland and Martin Coventry, The Castles of Scotland, have "Loch Leven Castle"; Canmore has "Loch Leven Castle" as the alternative. So it's a matter of choice, but there is support for the present title.Horis (talk) 12:03, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

References

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages

Greetings WikiProject Scottish Castles Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

• Fix and improve Mr.Z-bot's popular pages report

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 18:07, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Popular pages report

We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, Community Tech bot will post at Wikipedia:WikiProject Scottish Castles/Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of WikiProject Scottish Castles.

We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:

• The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
• The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
• The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to Mr.Z-man for his original Mr.Z-bot, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of WikiProject Scottish Castles, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Status of project

While not exactly bustling with activity this project does continue: please look at the announcements page! Horis (talk) 16:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not formally a member of this project, it's on my watchlist along with many articles on Scottish castles. This project still has a role and it's always encouraging to see activity in the announcements! Richard Nevell (talk) 21:29, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

New article - Popular castles of Scotland

I have a fascination for Scotland. I decided to make the above article. Have a look, make improvements or suggestions. I will endeavour to further wikify it, especially in terms of categories and such.

QuakerIlK (talk) 10:38, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Useful Documents

Hi, I work for Historic Environment Scotland, and thought I could provide links to some very useful documents. These are all publicly accessible. Of particular interest should be documents under "Statement of Significance". [2]

I probably won't contribute much to the project myself, as I am very much a novice user, and may not have the time. I also have to be careful not to breach any conditions of my contract, and am currently unsure how much I can provide to that effect.

ElFoes (talk) 20:57, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:55, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Help! Draft:Scottish Castles Restoration Projects

I’m sorry to see that these days there doesn't seem to be too much interest in the Scottish Castles project. I added my name to this, I think a couple of years ago now, and I see since then only a handful of people have joined in.

I’ve done one or two additions to individual castle pages, but the main thing I’m trying to do is put up this Draft Article on the many restoration projects that have taken place over say the last forty years. I hope castle fans will agree that this has been quite a phenomenon and certainly worthy of note in the overall picture of Scottish castles.

However, I’m having difficulty in getting it promoted to mainspace. I thought I had a good rapport with a well known reviewer/editor, ‘Theroadislong’ who has approved three previous Draft articles of mine which I started (NB nothing to do with castles), but as we might say in Scotland, he seems to have taken a ‘scunner’ to this one.

And for the life of me, I cannot see why – please see the Draft Article Talk page for my views. So, is there anyone out there who follows this Forum who is either an editor who can approve this article, or knows of someone who would do so? Or of course add their own contribution to the Draft.

Many thanks – and let’s hope we can get a bit more interest going on ‘Scottish Castles’.ArchaicW (talk) 11:16, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Skipness Castle

I had brief visit to Skipness Castle and Chapel on Thursday 11th July 2024. Took the ferry from Lochranza on the Isle of Arran to Clanoig on Kintyre, then walked the road to Skipness. Very little information is available on site and there is really not much more on Canmore, Historic Environment Scotland's information site for historic buildings and sites.

Walking to the castle and taking in the views and consulting the maps you get the feeling of it is as castle of importance. Ireland is not far away, a day's sailing in good conditions. The Ayrshire coast is clearly visible, again a day's sail away. Westward, access to the West Loch Tarbert half a day's march. Skipness beach would make for good landing for their birlins. The buildings themselves emanate power. What it faced eastwards was not just the Scottish Crown but edge of Anglo-Norman power. It is an interesting way of considering it as castles are about geography and culture. Could be saying, we are the Gaelic Norse, hello. Given the castle's location, it could have originally functioned as a power and raiding base.It must have been a threat to the lowland Scots, possibly the English too What changed the situation was the retreat of Norse influence and the effect of the plague.

Ruththenavigator (talk) 22:41, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

A speculated personel opinion based on maps and geography without reference to documentary evidence.