Clan Campbell - Dunstaffnage Castle - Framed & Mounted Photo Print

Aly Wight photographed Dunstaffnage Castle from within the grounds, looking up along a mossy dry stone wall toward the high curtain walls and towers above. The bare trees and dramatic winter sky give the castle a sombre, powerful atmosphere, and from this low angle the scale of the fortifications is plain. There has been a fortress on this rocky peninsula near Oban since at least the seventh century, and the massive curtain walls in this photograph were built by the MacDougalls. When Robert the Bruce seized the castle around 1309, he appointed the Campbells of Argyll as hereditary keepers. They have held that role for over seven hundred years. Flora MacDonald was briefly imprisoned here after helping Bonnie Prince Charlie escape, and local tradition says a Green Lady haunts the castle, her appearance marking important events in the lives of the Campbells.

If you carry the Campbell name, Dunstaffnage is where that seven centuries of stewardship began, and the Campbells are keepers of it still.