3-046-923 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Dunrobin Castle [in Scotland], seat of the Duke of Sutherland, visited by the Queen, 1872. 'Dunrobin is one of the stateliest of all the "stately homes of England." It is built on a commanding rocky eminence of the coast of Sutherland, and close upon the seashore, from which it is separated only by a narrow strip of faultless green turf and the hanging-gardens of the castle. The terrace is richly wooded, and at the western, or oldest, front of the castle, at the bottom of a rocky ravine, runs a small mountain stream...The castle was founded as far back as 1097, by Robert, second Earl of Sutherland, and has been in continuous occupation ever since. Strength was, of course, the first object that guided the selection of the site, and this was well secured on the rocky eminence which the Earl named after himself. But as time wore on, and the power of the Moror Chatt, or chief of the house, became less dependent upon this stronghold or that, the luxuries and graces of life began to be cultivated at Dunrobin, Additions were made to the building, and the garden acquired celebrity for the fine quality of its produce...But it was not until the present family succeeded that the castle assumed anything like the splendour and dimensions it now boasts'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.