Historic Scotland & National Trust for Scotland places in Highland

A tiny fortified bell tower of 1655 on a hilltop above the Findhorn valley south of Nairn, with a prison below and pistol holes beside the fireplace; free, open all year, up a single-track road off the A939.

Roofless church of a Valliscaulian priory founded about 1230 beside the River Beauly, with medieval Mackenzie tombs and an old burial ground among trees at the end of the village square; free, open all year.

James Dredge's taper-principle suspension bridge of 1854 over the River Oich beside the Caledonian Canal south of Fort Augustus, one of seven of his bridges to survive; free, view only while the deck is closed, small car park off the A82.

A horned Neolithic chambered cairn about 5,000 years old on a hilltop near Loch Watenan, Caithness, its antechamber stones and chamber walls still clear; free, open all year, a 0.75-mile walk along marker poles.

Iron Age broch tower with the rare remains of its surrounding village, on a rise above the Moray Firth beside the A9 north of Golspie; free, open all year, lay-by parking across the main road.

Ruined four-storey tower of the 1300s or 1400s, the Old Man of Wick, on a rock spine between two sea gullies a mile south of Wick; free, open all year, a half-mile clifftop walk from the South Head car park, promontory may be fenced off.

Bronze Age cemetery of passage graves and ring cairns ringed by standing stones in a wood above the River Nairn near Culloden, aligned on the midwinter sunset; free entry, open all year.

Two unexcavated long-horned Neolithic burial cairns, about 5,500 years old, set at right angles on a hilltop near Thurso; free and open all year, a 300 m walk up from a small car park.

Clava-type passage grave of about 2000 BC in Glen Urquhart, its roofed passage leading to a central chamber inside a ring of eleven standing stones; free, open all year, gravel parking a hundred metres away.

One of Skye's best preserved Iron Age brochs, on a rocky knoll near Bracadale with views over Loch Bracadale to the Cuillin, its door checks and wall stair surviving; free, open all year, a steep ten-minute walk.

An Iron Age broch beside the remote Strath More road below Ben Hope in Sutherland, its wall still about seven metres high over a great triangular lintel; free, open all year, seen from outside only.

Vast bastioned artillery fort of the 1750s on the Moray Firth, still an army base, with a mile of ramparts, grand magazine, barrack rooms, chapel and The Highlanders' Museum; adult £11, £10 online, half price in the first EH year.

Red sandstone ruins of the medieval cathedral of Ross in Fortrose's green square, with the Countess of Ross's chantry aisle and the chapter house that became the burgh tolbooth; free, open daily, on-street parking.

Dun Telve and Dun Troddan, two Iron Age brochs 500 metres apart in Gleann Beag near Glenelg, among the four best preserved in Scotland, Dun Telve still over ten metres high; free, open all year, small parking bays.

Two reconstructed Neolithic chambered tombs of about 3700 BC, a long cairn and a round cairn with chambers you can crawl into, on open moor in the Caithness Flow Country; free, open all year, boardwalks from a small roadside car park.

About 200 small stones in 22 rows fanning down a hillside at Mid Clyth near Lybster, raised some 4,000 years ago for reasons still unknown, the finest stone rows in Caithness; free, open all year, beside a minor road.

The grassy footings of a medieval chapel at Hilton near Tain, where a full-size replica stands of the famous Pictish cross-slab of about AD 800 with its side-saddle huntress; free, open all year, in the village.

One of Scotland's most complete 13th-century castles, built by the Comyns about 1280 at the mouth of the River Lochy and the scene of battles in 1431 and 1645; free, grounds open, castle closed for conservation and viewed through fencing.

A Pictish symbol stone carved with a bristling wild boar about AD 400 to 600, in the foyer of the Highland Council's headquarters in Inverness; free, weekdays 08:00 to 17:00, and through the window at other times.

Roofless Hanoverian barracks of 1719 to 1721 on a mound above the Spey at Kingussie, where the Jacobite army gathered and dispersed after Culloden; free, open all year, small car park across the road, a mile from Kingussie.

A plain 12th-century chapel on the Caithness coast west of Thurso, among the oldest standing churches in the county, its tapering doorways like early Irish churches; free, open all year, half a mile on foot over farmland.

Scotland's much-visited ruined castle on a promontory in Loch Ness, from Columba's Pictish fort to the Grant Tower and a trebuchet, with visitor centre, film and cafe; adult £16, £14 online, half price in the first EH year.

The oldest house in Inverness, a 1593 town house with a turnpike stair and crow-stepped gables, with a free exhibition on the town in the 1600s.

A 2,500-hectare crofting estate on Loch Alsh facing Skye, with temperate rainforest, a coral beach, 17 miles of trails and Balmacara Square at its heart.

Westernmost of the Small Isles, gifted to the Trust in 1981 with Canna House and its Gaelic archive, with 20,000 seabirds, a harbour cafe and CalMac from Mallaig.

Mile-long slot gorge near Ullapool with an 1874 suspension bridge above the 45-metre Falls of Measach, a viewing platform and a new visitor centre.

Battlefield where the 1745 Jacobite Rising ended, with an immersive visitor centre, clan graves and the memorial cairn on the open moor.

One of Britain's highest waterfalls, a 113-metre drop in the wild hills of Kintail reached only by a six-hour round walk from Morvich.

Scotland's most celebrated glen, a National Nature Reserve of Munros and film locations with an eco visitor centre telling the story of the 1692 massacre.

Tower on Loch Shiel marking where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his standard in 1745, beside the viewpoint for the Glenfinnan Viaduct.

Thatched Cromarty cottage where the geologist and writer Hugh Miller was born in 1802, with a three-floor museum of his fossils next door and two gardens.

Osgood Mackenzie's sub-tropical garden on a Loch Ewe peninsula in Wester Ross, 2,500 species warmed by the Gulf Stream, with a museum house and estate trails.

The Five Sisters of Kintail and the glens around Loch Duich, the Trust's second-largest estate, with walks from the Morvich ranger base and the Battle of Glenshiel site.

Scotland's newest National Nature Reserve, 750-million-year-old sandstone mountains including Liathach and Beinn Alligin, with a deer museum and loch-side walks.

Remote peatland, moor and mountain at the head of Glen Affric, hours from any road, where native woodland is returning and the old Skye drove road runs through.