Coroghan Castle, Canna

Coroghan Castle

Canna

Scotland

I know this is only a fairly distant shot of this castle, but the sheer beauty of the surroundings mean it duly earns it’s place on the web site. Canna is the Westernmost island in the small chain of The Small Isles in the Scottish Inner Hebrides off the West coast of Scotland. It is linked to a tiny island, off it’s South Eastern tip, by a tidal sand bank, called Sanday. The island is littered with the remains of iron-age forts, standing stones and small settlements.

The castle lies at the Eastern end of Canna, on a stone stack that projects out into the sea. The photo shown here shows a view of the castle from Canna Harbour, peering past the headland that houses the modern ferry pier. All that remains, are the lower portions of a tower, built into the naturally occurring stone stack. Although records exist stating that this stone stack was used as a place of refuge between 1577 and 1595 no building was referred to. It is therefore thought that the ruins seen today, probably date from the late 1600’s. This was a small fortification rather than a larger traditional castle, built into the rocks of Coroghan Mor, has walls under a metre thick, and measures around 3 metres by 2 metres internally. Entrance to the tower is by a doorway set in the East wall at the end of a steep sloping footpath. It’s possible that there would have been other buildings on the summit of the stack, providing further accommodation and protection.

The Isle of Canna web site.