Cluny Castle

Cluny Castle is a two-storey mansion three kilometres east of Laggan beside the River Spey in the Highland council area. Built in the early 19th century, it stands on the site of a 14th- or 15th-century stronghouse belonging to the Macphersons of Clan Chattan. The castle was demolished after the Jacobite rising of 1745 when government troops under the Duke of Cumberland destroyed Highland strongholds. Duncan Macpherson rebuilt it in the same place around 1800, completing the work in 1810. Andrew Carnegie leased the property later in the century before moving on to Skibo Castle in 1898. The main front is three bays wide and clad in grey granite ashlar. Giant Ionic pilasters frame the central wooden door topped by a segmental pediment, yet they stop short of carrying an entablature. Venetian windows sit in shallow round-headed recesses on either side of the door. The upper windows are grouped in threes, and the roofline is finished with battlements and tiny corbelled turrets. The slate roof is punctuated by small dormers, while the rear walls are built of rough rubble. A short walk north-west brings the early-19th-century stables, an L-shaped block of coursed rubble with a living wing, stables and coach house. Two segmental carriage arches mark the coach house, and a later dormer lights the altered living quarters. The East Lodge, 200 metres north-east on the A86, is a single-storey granite lodge with a veranda carried on wooden posts and a first-flanking chimney. Its iron gateway is set between octagonal piers, and low walls curve away with iron railings. The West Lodge, 500 metres south-west, has Tudor-arched upper windows and corner turrets suggested by raised masonry above the eaves. A private burial ground 350 metres south-west holds the earliest dated stone from 1801, though the site may be older.