Girnigoe and Sinclair Castle
| Girnigoe and Sinclair Castle | ||
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 Girnigoe and Sinclair Castle (2000) |
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| Castle type : | Rock castle | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Place: | Wick | |
| Geographical location | 58 ° 28 '41.5 " N , 3 ° 3' 59.5" W | |
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Girnigoe and Sinclair Castle are two ruined castles about three miles north of Wick in the Scottish Highlands .
location
The ruins are ten miles south of John o 'Groats and one mile east of Ackergill Castle right on the cliff. They are ultimately two castles that were built on a huge rock directly on Sinclair's Bay.
history
The first emerged Castle Girnigoe, in the 15th century, was mainly a tower house ( Tower House ). By the 17th century, various additions in the form of “court yards” were built around this tower house, which were later referred to as Sinclair Castle.
Girnigoe Castle was one of the many castles that was maintained by the old "Lordly line of St. Clair" (Sinclair) - more precisely, by the "Sinclairs Earls of Caithness".
In 1690 George Sinclair of Keiss besieged the two castles and was able to destroy them with heavy cannons and thus achieve victory over the defenders. In doing so, he destroyed his own heritage, because the castles were his. After the recapture, however, he gave up any claim to the destroyed castles and left the now abandoned ruins in the state in which they can be seen today.
investment
In earlier times, access to this group of castles was only possible via a fragile wooden bridge that led to the rock.
These very jagged building fragments, consisting of slate-like, meanwhile very weathered rock, are only partially accessible, but hide various secret passages in caves and in the interior of the rock. One of these corridors leads through the rock at sea water level and should have served the gentlemen who lived there at the time as a means of escape to the open sea in case of defense.
Web links
- Castle Sinclair Girnigoe site (English)