Torwood Castle and Tappoch Broch

July 27, 2015 31 Comments

I have Paul at Through the lens to thank for alerting me to this walk – I had never heard of either Torwood Castle or Tappoch Broch before he wrote about them. Not long after I read his post, we set out to explore ourselves.

From the village of Torwood, we headed up Castle Loan to the castle itself which dates from 1566. It’s now in the care of a trust but from 1957 until 1998 it belonged to Gordon Millar, a chartered accountant from Glasgow. He spent all that time renovating the ruin but died before completing his project. I’d say there’s not much left to show for it really! Poor Mr Millar. The cows don’t seem impressed.

Torwood Castle

We carried on past the castle in search of the Blue Pool, a Victorian brick-lined tank with clear, turquoise water. No-one seems to know what it was used for but the colour is thought to be from the high levels of aluminium sulphate found in the local fireclay.

Blue Pool

We then retraced our steps back to the castle and headed up to the broch, one of the best-preserved in lowland Scotland. Brochs are Iron Age dwellings consisting of two concentric drystone walls forming a hollow walled tower with galleries and stairways in between. There’s just enough left to get some idea of that – see the panorama at the top of the post and the pictures below.

Tappoch Broch

From the broch, it was a pleasant walk back through the woods to the car.

Linked to Jo’s Monday Walks – meet walkers worldwide at her site.

Scotland, UK Castles, Jo's Monday walk, Prehistoric sites, Tappoch Broch, Torwood Castle

31 Comments »

Alex Hurst
August 9, 2015 at 17:02

Lovely photos, as usual. But I do have a question, and please excuse my ignorance… what is a broch?

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- Anabel Marsh
  August 9, 2015 at 17:18
  
  Not ignorance! They are unique to Scotland. A broch is a tower-like building with double walls and staircases in between, all drystone. Dates from the Iron Age. There are some better preserved examples than this one which might well be featuring on the blog soon…..
  
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  - Alex Hurst
    August 9, 2015 at 23:24
    
    That’s really cool! Thank you for explaining. What was their main function? Defense?
    
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    - Anabel Marsh
      August 10, 2015 at 07:40
      
      Possibly defensive, or possibly just a grand home for prestigious members of the community as they weren’t all on obviously defensive sites.
      
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cassam101
August 3, 2015 at 15:29

I wonder what the castle looked like when it was finished.

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- Anabel Marsh
  August 3, 2015 at 18:55
  
  Lovely I expect!
  
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rosemaylily2014
August 3, 2015 at 05:42

Poor Mr Millar – he doesn’t seem to have got much to show for all his efforts 😦 It must be a money pit – hopefully the trust can do some renovating? I didn’t know what a “broch” was before either so thank you for the Iron Age history lesson! The area looks lovely basking in the sunshine!

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- Anabel Marsh
  August 3, 2015 at 07:50
  
  Thank you! It looks to me as if the Trust has its work cut out just maintaining the castle to stop it falling down any further. There are more brochs in the Highlands and Islands – this one is unusually far south. Some of the others have far more remaining and you can really imagine what they must have looked like.
  
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