Castle Leod

Castle Leod is the seat of the Clan Mackenzie. It is a category A listed building, and the grounds are listed in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes of Scotland, the national listing of significant gardens. It is located near Strathpeffer in the east of Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands.

The castle was granted to John of Killin, 10th Chief of Clan MacKenzie after he fought at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The castle was passed to his great-grandson Kenneth Mackenzie, 1st Lord Mackenzie of Kintail, who granted it in 1608 to his brother Sir Roderick "Rorie" Mackenzie. In 1605 Sir Roderick married Margaret MacLeod, heiress of Torquil MacLeod of Lewis, bringing her immense wealth into the family and also settling the feud between the MacLeods and the Mackenzies over the Barony of Coigach, which thus passed into the Mackenzie family.

The castle is believed to have been built on the site of a very ancient Pictish fort from before the 12th century. The current castle is the result of work carried out in the early 17th century by Sir Roderick Mackenzie, the ancestor of the Earl of Cromartie. The castle has remained the seat of the Earls of Cromartie ever since.

In 1746 George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie, forfeited the estate, following his support for the ill-fated 1745 Jacobite Uprising. The estates, but not the title, were restored to his son in 1784. The castle was reported to already be in a run-down state earlier in the same century, when the estate was badly debt-ridden. By 1814 it was described as "Quite a ruin... deserted except by crows", though this may have applied more to the upper floors.

In the mid 19th century, Castle Leod was completely renovated by the Hay-Mackenzies. Descendants of the 3rd Earl, the Hay-Mackenzies were restored to the earldom of Cromartie after Anne Hay-Mackenzie married George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 3rd Duke of Sutherland, and in 1861 was created first Countess of Cromartie, the earldom last held by her great-great-grandfather, the 3rd Earl, with a special remainder to her second son, Francis Mackenzie, 2nd Earl of Cromartie. She was also created Baroness Macleod, of Castle Leod.

In 1851 large extensions were added to the north of the castle, which were rebuilt in 1904. The roof was made watertight as recently as 1992.

Text adapted from “Castle Leod” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Castle Leod ranks #3,590 of 8,764 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #121 of the 207 mapped in Scotland. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 2,708 times in the last 60 days, more than 74% of the atlas. 5 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Inverness, 22 km away. It is one of the 69 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Scottish Highlands. See how Scotland compares in the castle statistics.

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