3-039-092 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Land of Lorne: Dunolly Castle, 1871. View of the castle which stands '...upon a bold promontory at one side of the bay of Oban...This was the proper ancestral seat of the original Lords of Lorne, the descendants of Dougall, one of the two sons of Somerled, killed in battle at Renfrew, 1164; and Dunolly is still the property of a gentleman named Macdougall. "The principal part that remains," says Sir Walter Scott, " is the donjon or keep; but fragments of other buildings, overgrown with ivy, attest that it had once been a place of importance...These fragments inclose a courtyard, of which the keep probably formed one side; the entrance being by a steep ascent from the neck of the isthmus, formerly cut across by a moat, and defended, doubtless, by outworks and a drawbridge...Upon the whole, a more delightful and romantic spot can scarce be conceived; and it receives a moral interest from the consideration attached to the residence of a family once powerful enough to confront and defeat Robert Bruce, and now sunk into the shade of private life".' From "Illustrated London News", 1871.