Morton Castle

Morton Castle sits majestically on a triangular spur above Morton Loch in the hills north of Thornhill, with steep drops on three sides to the artificial loch below, and is notoriously difficult to find, which keeps it quiet. It is one of only a handful of hall-houses identified in Scotland and by far the most complex: a first-floor hall over an undercroft, probably ringed by a curtain wall with a round tower at the point of the spur, and a gatehouse whose back-to-back D-shaped towers resemble the Black Gate at Newcastle. Its date is argued over, but the architecture points to about 1300, when the barony belonged to Sir Thomas Randolph, Robert the Bruce's nephew. James VI is said to have burnt it in 1588. Reviewers take the potholed single-track road slowly, park by the field gate for a two-minute walk, go inside by a scaffold gangway and enjoy the loch and the information boards with nobody else about.