🗺️ NC500 Attractions

Dunrobin Castle is the most northerly of Scotland's great houses and one of the most spectacular — a fairytale confection of turrets and spires rising above formal gardens modelled on those at Versailles, overlooking the North Sea. The home of the Earls and Dukes of Sutherland since the 13th century, the current fairy-tale exterior was designed by Si…

Carbisdale Castle is one of Scotland's most dramatically positioned buildings, a large Edwardian "castle" completed in 1917 commanding a hilltop above the Kyle of Sutherland and the Far North railway line. It was built by the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland — nicknamed the "Castle of Spite" because it was deliberately positi…

Skelbo Castle is a small but atmospheric ruined stronghold on the shore of Loch Fleet, just north of Dornoch, within the Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve. The castle dates to around the 14th century and was associated with the Sutherland family. Today only modest walling sur…

Helmsdale Castle stood at the centre of one of the most dramatic poisoning plots in Scottish history. In 1567, the Countess of Sutherland poisoned the Earl and Countess of Sutherland here in a bid to secure the earldom for…

Castle Varrich is a ruined 15th-century tower on a prominent hillock directly above Tongue village, offering what many consider the finest short-walk viewpoint on the entire NC500. The climb from the village takes about 20–25 minutes and the reward is breathtaking — a 360-degree panorama encompas…

Borve Castle near Durness survives as minimal remains of a medieval Mackay clan stronghold, sitting in the open moorland south of the village. The remains are fragmentary — little survives above foundation level — and the site is largely of historical interes…

Ardvreck Castle is the most photographed castle ruin on the entire NC500 — a 15th-century MacLeod stronghold standing on a rocky peninsula jutting into Loch Assynt, with the vast bulk of Quinag mountain rising behind it and the waters of the loch reflecting the ruins on calm days. Few scenes in Scotland are more cinematically beautiful. The castle has a dramatic history: in 1650 the Marquess of Mont…

Calda House is a substantial roofless ruin standing adjacent to Ardvreck Castle on Loch Assynt — the two ruins complement each other perfectly and are always visited together. Calda House was built in 1726 by the Mackenzie family (who bought the Assynt estates from the MacLeods) as a much grande…

Hermit's Castle is unlike any other "castle" on the NC500 — a tiny, single-room concrete structure barely the size of a garden shed, built by an eccentric English architect named David Scott who used it as a hermitage in the early 1950s, reportedly spending a single winter there before abandoning it. The structure sits dramatically on the rocky Atlantic shoreline near Achmelvich beach, with a chimney, a sleeping alcove…