Today Grey Granite and Rufus visited the most haunted castle in Scotland, Caisteal Uisdean, Hugh's Castle, the last medieval castle to be built on Skye, set in a beautiful location but with an inordinately gruesome story.
We parked in a disused quarry about 1km down the road to Cuidrach from the A 82. From there the road twists across a rocky moor, descending to Cuidrach.
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| The road down to Cuidrach, there are spectacular views once the road passes the last rocky outcrops. |
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| Beyond Cuidrach the track becomes a very boggy path crossing moorland but is clearly waymarked |
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| Caistel Uisdean, situated high on a rocky promontory overlooking the entrance to Loch Snizort Beag, the castle has walls about 8ft thick, the only entrance was 8ft above ground. |
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| The view south from the castle |
The fortress was built by Hugh MacDonald of Sleet, a cousin of Donald Gorm Mor of Duntulm. Hugh wished to have his cousin murdered and invited him to the house warming for the new castle. Unfortunately, the invitation was muddled with a letter to the person Hugh wanted to carry out the assasination. As a result Hugh was imprisoned in Duntulm's dungeon where there was a platter of salt beef which Hugh ate before discovering that the flagon besde it was empty. Hugh is said to have gone mad from thirst and to have died walled up in the dungeon. His ghost reputedly haunts the castle but was elsewhere this afternoon.
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