File:Castle Sween circa 1880 (14782695714).jpg

Identifier: castellateddomes03macg (find matches)
Title: The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland, from the twelfth to the eighteenth century
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: MacGibbon, David, d. 1902 Ross, Thomas, 1839-1930
Subjects: Architecture Architecture, Domestic Castles
Publisher: Edinburgh : D. Douglas
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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Text Appearing Before Image:
Fig. 21.—Castle Swin. View from North-East. of the rock next the sea, and would strengthen the castle at this point. The round tower is well furnished with loopholes, and was,no doubt, crowned with a machicolated parapet. It commands a good view of the loch and would form a useful post of observation. There is a deep and carefully built and vaulted pit in the basement, with a drain led from it to the sea, and an aperture in the floor of the tower above. This no doubt formed the entrance to the prison or dungeon in the vault beneath from the guard-room in the tower. The adjoining square building may have comprised the quarters for the garrison. In the large courtyard some foundations of walls are observable, but they do not appear to be very old. There is also a well in the north-east angle. FIRST PERIOD — Page 62 — CASTLE SWIN
Text Appearing After Image:
David MacGibbon, Thomas Ross, The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland, vol. 3 Page 62 Fig. 22. Castle Swin. View from North-West. The history of this castle is almost a blank. Like the other similar fortresses of the West it was probably erected by royal command in the thirteenth century. It afterwards became one of the castles of the Lord of the Isles. In 1472 it was in the keeping of Hector Torquil Macneill, the founder of the Macneills of Gigha, who held it for the Lord of the Isles. In 1481, after the resignation of the Earl of Ross and the insurrection of his son Angus, the keepership of Castle Swin, now again a royal castle, was granted, along with lands in Knapdale, formerly held by the Lord of the Isles, to Colin, first Earl of Argyll. Like so many other castles in the West, Swin was destroyed by Colkitto (Coll Ciotach) in the seventeenth century.

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