Broughty Castle

Broughty Castle stands at the mouth of the River Tay at Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, on a spur guarding the entrance to the estuary. The site was licensed for fortification in 1454 by George Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus, but the four-storey stone tower house that survives was raised around 1495 for Andrew, 2nd Lord Gray. Its position — commanding the river approaches to both Dundee and Perth — made it a repeated military prize. During the Rough Wooing, English forces took the castle in 1547 after the Battle of Pinkie and held it until a French and Scottish force recaptured it by siege in 1550. A century later, General Monck’s Parliamentary army seized it in 1651, after which it fell into long decline. The War Office bought the ruin in 1855, and in 1860 the architect Robert Rowand Anderson rebuilt it as a coastal artillery fort against a feared French invasion, adding gun emplacements, a caponier and new courtyard walls. It served through both world wars before military use ended in 1949. Since 1969 the castle has housed a museum, today holding displays on Dundee’s arms, whaling and maritime past.