Travel – Arran

This is an excerpt from my book Travels through History : Ten Scottish Islands currently on sale for a discount.

Brodick Castle is close to the sea on the opposite shore from the ferry terminal. This is a National Trust for Scotland property, so if you have a membership, then entrance is free for you. The grounds are extensive and there are at least two entrances on the left-hand side of the road as you head northwards. I found the gardens lovely and not overly manicured, so natural woods dotted with rhododendrons and tree ferns are the first items visitors walk past. The principal features besides the castle are the Bavarian Summer House and the imposing Walled Garden, whose outside walls I found full of flowers. It’s amazing how little soil and water plants need to start growing and flowering.

The Summer House seen in the garden today was constructed in a Bavarian style as a wedding present for Princess Marie of Baden. Her marriage to William, who later became the 11th Duke of Hamilton, was the catalyst for Brodick’s expansion into the luxurious castle seen today. Marie was the cousin of Napoleon III and the marriage elevated the Hamiltons to a new social standing. Her husband’s extensive European travels often left her stranded at Brodick Castle, so the summer house aimed to ease her time on Arran by providing familiar surroundings.

If you head along the road called The String across the island from east to west, you’ll come to Blackwaterfoot, the main village on the west coast. It’s halfway down the coast and so was a good place to have the buses stop and return to their destinations. There’s a large hotel here, the Kinloch Hotel, which serves excellent food and drinks. Just behind the hotel on the land side, is a wonderful bakery, the Blackwater Bakehouse with its bread shed and honesty box. If you arrive after closing time, you can still buy bread products baked that day from the shed and leave your money in the box. 

I caught the bus down to the south coast to visit the Lagg distillery, opened in 2019 by the same people who run the Arran distillery in Lochranza. Lagg produces peatier whisky and has planted apple trees to make cider and apple brandy. There are rumours that the government may ban peat digging as it’s environmentally unfriendly, so Lagg are thinking ahead. On the bus heading south, the sun glinting off the sea and the Mull of Kintyre appearing hazily on the horizon took me back to the Greek islands of the Saronic Gulf.

Lamlash is three miles south of Brodick on the east coast and most of the houses are along the beachfront, looking across the water to Holy Island. A small tide-dependent ferry connects Lamlash and the island. The Samye Ling Tibetan Centre owns the island and uses it as a retreat, though visitors are allowed, provided they bring no alcohol, dogs, or bikes and start no campfires. Visitors can stay at the centre and are provided with full vegetarian board. The climb to the island’s 314-metre peak is a 2-3 hour return trip.