Daviot Castle

Daviot Castle occupied a promontory site overlooking the steep-sided Strathnairn south-east of Inverness. The stump of a single round tower is all that survives to see, although there are hints of further foundations below the grass. The site is within a private garden and not publicly accessible.

It is likely that at its height the castle was of a great tower and courtyard type, with corner towers, domestic buildings, and a great ditch crossed by a drawbridge isolating the promontory. Some of these features survived into the 1840s when a description of the ruins was made, but were removed by 1866. The lands of Daviot were held by the Moravia family and passed with marriage to the Stirlings of Nairn in the 13th century, and it is likely that (changes of fortune during the Wars of Independence notwithstanding) the Catherine Stirling who married Sir Alexander Lindsay in 1365 was the family heiress. Their eldest son David became the first Earl of Crawford, and in the 16th century this isolated property was sold after repeated raids by the Mackintoshes to the laird of Cawdor, their ally. Daviot remained occupied into the 18th century, but its ultimate fate is unknown. Daviot House itself dates to 1815/20, and perhaps replaces an earlier mansion here.

HES Canmore database entry