DUNVEGAN CASTLE AND GARDENS

SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

 

                                      THE VIEW OF LOCH DUNVEGAN FROM THE BATTLEMENTS ON THE CASTLE ROOF

This week I would like to take you on a quick tour of Dunvegan’s pride and joy, the medieval castle and extensive gardens that are the biggest tourist draw in Western Skye. While I appreciated the opportunity to visit a castle that dated back eight hundred years and still functioned as part-time residence of the Laird of Clan MacLeod, I enjoyed the gardens even more. Call me an unreconciled small d democrat.

The castle is remarkably intact, even though most of it is composed of additions and remodels that are comparatively modern. That is the most interesting facet of the tour, in that once the tourists withdraw, the ancient family has the run of the place. Most of the castle feels more like an aristocratic palace than a medieval ruin - because it is. While we don’t get to see the present-day family home, most of the rooms feel like they could host a party later that week. Even though their is forbidding stair down to the dungeon, and there are cannon relics on the ramparts, the castle mostly feel more like Downton Abbey than Shakespeare.

 

                                                                  THE VIEW OF THE SHORELINE OF LOCH DUNVEGAN FROM THE CASTLE

That stirred up latent democratic prejudices in my soul. I truly believe that Great Britain saved the world in the 1940’s, and for that we should be forever grateful. I cried once again listening to Churchill’s “We shall fight them on the beaches” speech just the other night. Yet the aristocratic triumphalism that places like Dunvegan Castle represents just gets my goat. The Monarchy is of course ridiculous, but that is not the real problem - it is next 400 or so families further down the pecking order that still distort the entire British nation.

                                                                  THE MODERN ADDITIONS TO THE CASTLE THAT KEEP THE MYTHS ALIVE DATE FROM THE 1850'S

Modern Britain of course went through a social revolution that in some ways took down the landed aristocracy more than a few notches. That’s why the hoi polloi actually get to visit these castle because the inheritance tax made the old order unsustainable, and required new “alternative” sources of income like admission fees to keep up appearances. I’m not arguing that the castle should fall into ruins, but that the idea that one family still owns a place that is really part of a nation’s history strikes me as folly.

 

                                      THE ROUTE TO THE HISTORICAL REAL FRONT DOOR OF THE CASTLE WHICH ENSURED RESUPPLY FROM LOCH DUNVEGAN

This is Scotland, so the mood is enlivened by the idea that this aristocratic line is somewhat revolutionary. There is hardly a Union Jack to be found anywhere on the grounds, and the usual Scottish myths are part of the tour. I find most of Medieval Scotland can be best understood as simply West Side Story, with interminable conflict between the Sharks and the Jets. The Clans seem to be no more honorable than Mafia Families. On Skye this conflict was between the MacDonald's of Armandale and the usually triumphant MacLeod Clan whose seat was at Dunvegan. In the end both families lost their power to modernity, and the Southern Scottish aristocracy who realized it made more sense to be part of the world’s greatest empire than to hold out at the end of the world in places like Skye.

                                                                  THE TRADITIONAL BARONIAL WINDOW OVER THE CASTLE'S LANDWARD ENTRANCE.

                                                                  A TABLEAU AT A LIBRARY WINDOW THAT SEEMS MORE 1930'S THAN 1430'S.

The Clan system at least allowed for the election of the Laird, even if they happened to be a woman - although I doubt democracy really held sway. Walking through Dunvegan Castle what really made an impression on me was that modern people lived there, and the library, dining rooms and the parlors all contained stuff that I might find in my house, if I was a tad richer. Only when I walked past the one representation of “Downstairs” did it really hit me that a servant lived their private life in one simple room, even if they got to hear Mr. Churchill on the wireless.

 

                                                                  A SERVANT'S ROOM - DATING FROM THE 1940'S.

I enjoyed the rather beautiful gardens attached to the Castle a lot more than the Castle itself. The family obviously had caught the gardening bug a long time ago, and the gardens took full advantage of an incredible site along the Loch Dunvegan. The gardens were arranged along quite a hike uphill from the Castle, bordered by a series of streams with all sorts of bridges here and fro. The walk culminated in a series of beautiful waterfalls which provided the water for all those streams. Not your ordinary suburban garden.

                                                                  STREAMS AND BRIDGES

 

                                                                  ANCIENT TREES

                                      FERNS APLENTY

                                      THIS HOSTA COULD HAVE COME FROM FRAN'S GARDEN.

 

                                                                  EVEN THROW IN A FEW RHODDIES

What made it more special for Fran and I was that the climate was essentially identical to Oregon. We had traveled thousands of miles to a Medieval castle whose garden could have been found in Portland - ferns, crazily shaped trees, rhoddies, and enough water to make us feel right at home. The fact that it was raining most of the time we were there only completed the illusion that Scotland was somehow just part of Laurelhurst Park, with a ton of history thrown into the mix.

                                                                  I COULD EASILY LIE AND CLAIM THIS WATERFALL WAS SOMEWHERE IN THE COLUMBIA GORGE.