Arrochar Castle

Arrochar Castle is a bit of a misnomer, since there is no evidence that a castle ever stood here. However it was the designation of the chiefs of the Macfarlane clan, and it may be that this provided a tradition of there being a series of castles here recorded in the name “Rudha Chaisteil” in the first Ordnance Survey just to the north of the house.

The Macfarlane clan occupied the lands around Tarbet and Arrochar, and were associated with the earls of Lennox, who the clan chiefs claimed descent from. The heads of the family held the lands of Arrochar as lords from the late 14th century at least, but their occupancy may not have been continuous because of changes in the families holding the earldom. By the mid 16th century they were a well established kindred, and Duncan Macfarlane, named as the chief of the clan was designated “of Arrochar” in complaints made about the lawless and violent behaviour of him and his kin. The Macfarlane properties were targeted by Cromwellian troops in 1653/54, and it is likely that any house they had in Arrochar was destroyed. However their main seat in the area was at Tarbet to the east, along with the castle of Eilean Vhow.

When the chief of the Macfarlanes rebuilt, he founded a new house in 1697 called Inverioch, also known as New Tarbet, abandoning his other properties to the east. An out-of-copyright reproduction of this in roofless condition from the 1922 “History of the Macfarlanes” is shown as the illustration of this site. The house is now gone, but a commemorative stone recording its building can be seen at the Claymore Hotel, which now occupies the site. The Macfarlanes sold the estate off towards the end of the 18th century, and presumably it was the new owners who built the structure named as “Arrochar House” on that early Ordnance Survey.

HES Canmore database entry