castle leod

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Home of the Chief of the Clan Mackenzie
and Seat of the Clan Mackenzie

built on the site of a very ancient Pictish fort about the 12th Century

oldest intact castle on the island

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A TAD OF HISTORY

In 1605 Sir Roderick "Rorie" Mackenzie married Margaret MacLeod, heiress of Torquil MacLeod of the Lewis. This proved to be an extremely astute and opportune betrothal, since it not only brought her immense wealth into the family but also settled once and for all the bitter and often violent feud between the MacLeods and the Mackenzies over the West Coast Barony of Coigach, which thus passed into the Mackenzie family.

In circa 1606, Sir Rorie modified and added on to the existing structure of Castle Leod (Leod is probably derived from a Norse word, not the marriage maiden name of that was a happy coincidence), creating a magnificent, compact, red sandstone L-Plan tower house. In 1606 he was granted the Barony of Coigach and the lands of "Cultelloud" in the charter drawn up by his elder brother, Kenneth Mackenzie. Two dormerheads on the castle's northern elevation boast Sir Rorie's and his wife's initials, RMK and MMC, together with the date 1616 - probably marking the 5-storey L-Plan castle's completion or perhaps the date of its major additional building.

Certainly, it was not long after Castle Leod was finished that this substantial addition was built in the re-entrant angle of the traditional L-shape; it was to the same roof height and transformed the castle's shape to nearly square, though one of the L-wings (the south) remained projecting a little at one corner. Both L-wings had each boasted a crow-stepped gable end with corbelled parapet walk, all left intact, the gable end of the re-entrant addition marking a fine side-by-side pair with that of the west L-wing, the pair flanked by charming conical-roofed corner turrets, or bartizans.

The Scottish Highlands' clan inter feuding of the time had led to most castles of the period being built with no ground floor entrance to the main body of the castle. And so it had been with the original L-shaped Castle Leod; a ladder stairway had risen one floor up the outside of the building, a type of entrance easy to defend in a violent siege, with the stairway being withdrawn or simply destroyed.

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