Fife and Scotland - the offbeat perspective

It was my wife's idea that we should head west and visit Carnasserie Castle and where one of her ancestors had once been resident. In truth I had never even heard of the place but it was a kind of US family tradition to visit there even though most descendents were now resident in the USA.

A few hours later, we were making miserable progress down a twenty-mile long single track road on the south side of Loch Awe. It was a holiday weekend and traffic was perhaps heavier than usual with people headed for fishing lodges, caravans and a few hotels along this shoreline.

On subsequent visits to this region and driving there from Fife, it proved much easier to head for Perth then Oban before driving south towards Kilmartin.

Our goal was about twenty-five miles south of Oban. Built between 1565 and 1572 on the site of an older building, Carnasserie Castle stands on top of a large hill rising high above the otherwise wide Kilmartin valley. Carnasserie was built by John Carswell who was appointed Bishop of Argyll and the Isles in the reign of Mary Queen of Scots. It is here, within this building, that John Carswell translated John Knox's 'Liturgy' into Gaelic and became one of the first printed works in a Goidelic language. This 'Book of Common Prayer' was printed in Edinburgh and widely distributed.

John Carswell was a tall man in a society where most people were short in stature. Upon his death, he was buried in the nearby Kilmartin Church cemetery. In the 19th century, his grave was opened and the skeleton was measured at more than seven feet tall!

We enter the spacious car park, located just off A816, park and contribute to its upkeep via the honesty box. The last part of the journey is on foot, a task easily undertaken by our dog albeit on a leash because cattle and sheep are nearby. It's less easy for those with walking difficulties.

Carswell held the lands and Castle on behalf of Archibald Campbell, the 5th Earl of Argyll. A motto above a doorway reads "God be with O Duibhne", the archaic name for the Chiefs of the Campbells of Argyll. The panel also contains the Earl's coat of arms as well as the royal arms. The Earl of Argyll married a daughter of King James V and the Earl subsequently assumed ownership and control of the Castle upon Carswell's death in 1572.

The castle was badly damaged by the Clans MacLean and MacLachlan when the 9th Earl of Argyll took part in the Monmouth Rising, a rebellion against King James VII in 1685. Nevertheless, there are still fine stone carvings and a magnificent fireplace to be seen. The building is now cared for by Historic Scotland.

This is just one of the places where roots of a new religious understanding began and where the differences between an emerging Scottish Protestant Nation contrasted sharply with English acceptance of Catholic viewpoints surviving the collapse of the Roman Empire in Europe.