Huntingtower Castle

Huntingtower Castle is to be found just west of Perth beside the junction of the A9 and the A85 Crieff road. Both the grounds and the castle are beautifully cared for and the staff are very knowledgable and friendly.


Essentially, the castle is 'ruins', although there is still a lot to discover and you can walk right up to the roof. there is a room that is laid out for weddings - what a lovely place to get married.


No tea shop or anything spectacular in the way of a large gift shop and the gardens themselves are rather small.


We went on a 'heritage weekend', which meant that it was free entrance, so look out for other offers. Normal entry is approx £5 I think.


Watch out for the bats who live in the roof....

The remains of Huntingtower Castle can be found west of Perth on the A85. Its well sign posted and can also easily been seen from the A85. The staff is very friendly and operate out of a little shed just beside the castle. There are toilets.
I made my way to the original staff entrance to the west and worked my way up the spiral stairs accessing various rooms of the previous owners, like the bed chambers of the Lord and Ladies.
The original owners were the Ruthven who fell out of favours with the crown after several kidnap and hostage attempts of their young king during their times. The Ruthven leader of the "Raid of Ruthven" was beheaded and his sons murdered 15 years later. After the "Gowrie Conspiracy" the Ruthven name was proscribed and their lands seized. Ruthven castle became Huntingtower and was given to the Murrays.Guess James never forgave them being held captive for at least 10 months.
There are a lot of interesting rooms in that building, but the most interesting part for me were the battlements on which u can walk around the towers high up. Apparently the gap between two originally separated towers is called the 'maiden's leap" and named after an event when a fair lady jumped across a 3m gap from one tower to the other to escape her mothers scorn of being caught in the arms of her lover. Ehm, I saw the gap and am a bit doubtful she would jump that.........but hey ho, I guess, if mum is after you....:-)

You can find out much more about this place from the guidebook or various boards inside the castle.
The place might not look as awesome as other sites nearby, the history on the other hand is quite an interesting one.

I also read that a Green Lady is haunting this place. She is called Lady Greensleeve and is said to foretell.....xx...but sometimes is helpful to souls in need.
Ehm, am I glad I did not know this before I went and am I glad I did not see her :-D

Enjoy!

Another place to soak in the history.

So yet another place included in our Explorer Pass, another stamp in my brochure. Did I mention that? Maybe not... they have a brochure that they stamp when you visit a site. Sadly, I did not get my stamp at Edinburgh Castle because they ran out of pamphlets. Everybody got their stamps? Good, let's proceed.

So we enter through this door that leads to what looks like a classroom. What the eff is this? Is this what the whole castle is going to look like? I was expecting old and falling apart stone, not grade school classroom with children's art/science experiments strewn about... (I'm not against children, I just thought this was the opposite of what I was expecting).

In through another door. Ah. Here's the history. There is no audio guide, if there was, I didn't get one. Rather we just wandered around reading the signs on the walls. I went up a stone staircase on one side of the building. I read about the room and took pictures of the ceilings. When it came time to explore the other side, I stopped short of this wooden staircase joining the two towers. I am normally not scared of heights, but something about this wooden staircase scared me. It's between the two buildings... is it safe? Everyone else seemed okay. I read about a young lady who lived there that jumped across from one building to the next. I can't even cross a staircase built to join the two. Wow.

Up on the roof, lovely view. There is no gift shop or cafe for me to eat a scone, but it has nice grounds to wander.

Costs to get in but you can get in the grounds for free. The lady that works there is very nice. If you walk further down the road next to the castle you will come across an area where lovely drinking water comes out. This is a nice area to have a picnic or go for a bike ride