Cawdor Castle

Cawdor Castle stands in the Highlands near Nairn, grown outward over centuries from a fifteenth-century tower house. A licence to fortify the site was granted in 1454 to William Calder, sixth Thane of Cawdor, though masonry in the oldest tower has been dated by architectural historians to around 1380, hinting that stone was raised here before the written record begins. Legend supplies its own account: a donkey laden with gold was set loose to wander, and where the beast finally lay down to rest, beneath a living tree, the family chose to build. That tree, a holly, still stands enclosed at the castle’s foundation. Later generations added a drawbridge, an enclosed courtyard, and extensive nineteenth-century remodelling by the architects Thomas Mackenzie and Alexander Ross. The property passed from the Calders to the Campbells in 1510, when the Calder heiress Muriel married Sir John Campbell, and it remains in Campbell hands today. Its wider fame owes much to Shakespeare, who made Macbeth Thane of Cawdor, yet the link is invention: the historical Macbeth reigned in the eleventh century, long before any stone was laid, and was never in truth thane here. Around the walls lie walled, flower, and wild gardens spanning several centuries.