Historic Scotland & National Trust for Scotland places in Argyll & Bute

Some of Scotland's largest and most complex prehistoric rock carvings, cups with up to twelve rings on bare rock sheets in Achnabreac Forest above Lochgilphead; free, open all year, a forest walk from a paid car park.

The ruined church of a Valliscaulian priory founded about 1230 on the shore of Loch Etive near Connel, with carved grave slabs and the MacDougall Cross of 1500; free, open 10:00 - 16:00, a short walk from the pier.

Fenced outcrops in a Kilmartin Glen field covered in cup and ring marks pecked out about 5,000 years ago; free, open all year, a short walk and a stile from the Dunchraigaig Cairn car park.

The most complete charcoal-fuelled ironworks in Britain, founded in 1753 by Loch Etive, with charcoal sheds, furnace and waterwheel lade; open April to September, adult £8.50, half price in the first EH year.

Roofless Renaissance tower house and hall of the 1560s built for the Earl of Argyll by John Carswell, Bishop of the Isles, with a Gaelic inscription and parapet views down Kilmartin Glen; free, open daily, a steep walk up from the car park.

Probably the oldest datable castle on the Scottish mainland, a curtain-walled stronghold of the 1100s on the shore of Loch Sween in Knapdale, built by Suibhne the Red; free, open all year, a steep walk from the parking area.

Rocky hill fort rising from the Moine Mhor in Kilmartin Glen, the royal power centre of the Gaelic kings of Dal Riata, with rock-cut footprints, a boar and an Ogham inscription at the summit; free, open all year, car park 200 m below.

A great Bronze Age cairn in Kilmartin Glen, about 4,000 years old, where Scotland's earliest known animal carvings, two red deer, were found in 2021 under a massive capstone; free, open all year, opposite a small car park.

One of Scotland's oldest stone castles, the MacDougalls' 13th-century stronghold on a rock above the Firth of Lorn, with battlements, a gatehouse of 1500 and a hidden chapel; adult £8.50, £7.50 online, half price in the first EH year.

The northernmost of Kilmartin Glen's five Bronze Age burial cairns, a 30 m mound of stones in a field below the village; free and open all year, reached across farmland with livestock.

St Columba's island monastery of 563, with the restored abbey church, Scotland's finest early carved crosses and the most complete medieval nunnery, by ferry from Mull; adult £11, ferry extra, half price in the first EH year.

A roofed chapel of the 1100s at the tip of the Tayvallich peninsula sheltering the Keills Cross of the 700s and nearly 40 carved stones; free, open 10:00 - 16:00, a 300-metre walk from the end of the road.

Romantic Campbell castle of the 1400s on Loch Awe, one of Scotland's most photographed, with the oldest surviving barracks on the mainland; free, reached on foot from the A85, interior closed for works.

Ring-headed high cross of the 700s, one of Scotland's finest early Christian carvings, standing in its original place in a ruined churchyard at the end of Islay's distillery road; free, open all year, gravel parking at the gate.

More than 20 carved medieval grave slabs and effigies, from the 900s to the 1600s, in Kilmartin churchyard and its burial aisle; free and open all year, beside the village's museum.

A fenced rock outcrop beside Kilmichael Glassary's primary school carved 5,000 years ago with cup and ring marks and rare keyhole shapes; free and open all year, a short walk from the school car park.

Ten carved medieval and later grave slabs, with hunting scenes, swords and a unicorn, in a small building in Kilmodan churchyard at Clachan of Glendaruel in Cowal; free and open all year.

A roofed chapel of the early 1200s at Kilmory on Loch Sween holding nearly 40 carved West Highland grave slabs and the MacMillan's Cross of the 1400s; free, open 10:00 - 16:00, the key on a chain at the door.

A disc-headed cross of the late 1400s, over 3 m tall and carved with a Crucifixion and a horseman, beside the pilgrims' road to Iona Abbey; free and open at all times, a short walk from the ferry.

The middle cairn of Kilmartin Glen's Bronze Age linear cemetery, with an open cist carved with an axe head and cup and ring mark; free and open all year, a short walk through sheep pasture.

A reconstructed Bronze Age burial cairn in Kilmartin Glen whose cist capstone bears rare carved axe heads; free and open all year, seen from outside while its inspection chamber is closed.

The oldest cairn in Kilmartin Glen's linear cemetery, a Neolithic chambered tomb over 5,000 years old whose roofed chamber visitors can still enter; free, open all year, a short walk across fields from the car park.

The southernmost Kilmartin Glen burial cairn, a low spread of stones in a fenced grove with a cist slab carved with rare axe heads; free, open all year, a 550 m road walk from Lady Glassary Wood.

Scotland's only circular castle, a moated Stewart stronghold in Rothesay taken by the Norse in 1230 and 1263, with a royal gatehouse, chapel and dungeon, minutes from the Bute ferry; adult £8.50, half price in the first EH year.

Hall-house of the early 1200s rebuilt by the Lords of the Isles and the Campbells, with its medieval shoreside chapel 300 m away on Skipness Bay opposite Arran; free, open April to September, village car park a short walk away.

An early Christian monastery of the late 500s at the south end of Bute, with a Norse hogback stone and a Romanesque church of the 1100s; free, open all year, a ten-minute walk on a signposted track.

The 14th-century chancel of Bute's medieval parish church in Rothesay cemetery, with the canopied tombs of a Stewart knight and a lady with her baby; free, open five days a week, closed Thursdays and Fridays.

A circle of standing stones in Kilmartin Glen used for ritual and burial from before 3000 BC to about 1000 BC, one stone carved with an Irish-style spiral; free, open all year, a 400-metre walk from the car park.

Sub-tropical garden of 1898 on a promontory over the Sound of Jura, with rhododendrons, tree ferns, ponds and a viewpoint across Asknish Bay.

Himalayan-style woodland glen on Loch Fyne, with waterfalls, champion trees, rhododendrons and a Neolithic cairn along the Crarae Burn.

Small Clydeside country-house garden with a 1797 walled garden, a giant wellingtonia, a 40-metre border and a productive kitchen garden.

Mackintosh's domestic masterpiece of 1904, now wrapped in the chainmail Hill House Box with walkways over the roof and views to Arran.