Keiss Castle

Keiss Castle stands on sheer cliffs above Sinclair’s Bay in Caithness, Highland. The ruin is a Z-plan tower house built in the late 16th or early 17th century by George Sinclair, 5th Earl of Caithness. It has four storeys plus an attic and a vaulted basement. Two corner towers rise from a square central block, and tall chimneystacks mark the main tower. The castle replaced an earlier fort on the same site. The castle was in use when James VI sent Sir Robert Gordon into Caithness with armed men in 1623. The 7th Earl died here in 1698. By 1700 the building was already ruinous, yet repairs followed in 1726. Sir William Sinclair of Dunbeath bought the estate early in the 18th century and made it his family seat. A new house was built around 1755, later remodelled in Scottish baronial style by David Bryce for K. Macleay in 1860. Visitors see the tall, narrow ruin on the cliff edge and the later mansion beside it. The walled garden lies to the north-east, with a gate lodge and cast-iron gates added in the 1860s. The cliffs drop steeply to Sinclair’s Bay, offering wide views across the water. The contrast between the old tower and the baronial mansion shows centuries of change in one place.