DUNROBIN CASTLE
Golspie, Dornoch
Sutherland, Gordon
Dunrobin is the furthest north of Scotland’s great castles, offering great views over the Moray Firth. With its French-inspired design by Sir Charles Barry – also responsible for London’s Houses of Parliament – dating from 1835-1850, it’s also the embodiment of a fairytale castle.
The interiors of Dunrobin’s 189 rooms were restored after a fire in 1915, courtesy of Scottish architect, Sir Robert Lorimer. Some of the original building can be seen in the interior courtyard.
The Sutherlands, later earls then dukes, have been at Dunrobin Castle since the 14th century, with the land in the hands of Hugh de Moravia, grandson of the Flemish noble Freskin, before 1211. The Earldom of Sutherland was created for Hugh’s son, William, around 1230.
The name, Dunrobin, is said to come from Robert Sutherland, the 6th Earl of Sutherland, who died in 1444. Briefly in the hands of the Gordon Earls of Huntly, in 1518 the castle was taken by the legitimate heir to the Sutherland Earldom, Alexander Sutherland. However, the Gordons subsequently retook it and put Alexander’s head on a spear on top of the castle tower. They also killed his son, John, when he made an attempt on Dunrobin in 1550.
During the 1745 Jacobite Rising, the 17th Earl, who had changed his surname from Gordon to Sutherland, supported the Hanoverians and
