Assynt

Isolated mountains rise sharply above the moors and countless small lochs of Assynt. Suilven and Canisp stand apart from the lower hills, while farther east limestone country shelters deep caves beneath the mountains. Loch Assynt gathers these waters into a long inland basin. On a rocky peninsula above its shore, the MacLeods established Ardvreck Castle, a seat of lordship amid the broken country of the northwestern Highlands.

In 1650, the defeated royalist commander, the Marquess of Montrose, was held at Ardvreck before being delivered to the Covenanters. The MacLeods themselves lost the castle to the Mackenzies in 1672, and control of Assynt passed with it. Around 1725, the new lords built Calda House beside the loch, replacing the tower house as their residence with a mansion of numerous heated chambers. Its destruction by fire in 1737 brought this brief display of Highland grandeur to an abrupt end.