Willie’s View: Dumbarton Castle
Few Scottish castles can boast as long and as colourful a past as that of Dumbarton Castle.
Guarding the Firth of Clyde, its history extends for more than 1,500 years. Actually, it’s probably closer to 330 million years, when it all began as the plug of an ancient volcano.
Rising to 240 feet above the Clyde; climbing the stairs to the summit will certainly test your fitness.
It was blowing a hooley, too, on the top this morning, but from the twin summits of “White Tower Crag” and “The Break”, what extensive views there were over both the Lowlands and the Highlands.
On the long, steep stairway to the Portcullis Arch and French Prison, as you pass below the Guardhouse, look up and you’ll see the carved head of the “Fause Mentieth” – the castle’s keeper who captured and sent William Wallace to face his fate in London in 1305.
From the Vikings to Wallace; Mary Queen of Scots to Jacobite prisoners; they’ve all left their mark on this, the “Rock of the Clyde”.
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