Loch Leven Castle

A castle may have been built on Castle Island as early as 1257, when King Alexander III of Scotland, then 16 years old, was forcibly brought there by his regents. During the First War of Scottish Independence (1296–1328), the invading English army held the castle, then named Lochleven Castle; it lies at a strategically important position between the towns of Edinburgh, Stirling and Perth. Part of the present fortification, the curtain wall, may date from this time period English forces laid siege to Lochleven in 1301, but the garrison was relieved in the same year when the siege was broken by Sir John Comyn. Loch Leven Castle was fortified in the 14th or early-15th century by the addition…

The castle, and an outer enclosure of which little trace remains, originally took up almost the entire area of Castle Island. The present wooded, and considerably larger, island was formed in the early 19th century when the canalising of the outflow of the River Leven, which enters the Firth of Forth at the town of Leven, led to a substantial lowering of the water level. The castle comprises a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a curtain wall, with a tower house, or keep, at one corner, and the round Glassin Tower projecting from the opposite corner. The foundations of demolished ranges of buildings remain around two sides of the courtyard. Of the outer court, only an earth bank shows the…