Category: Doune castle tours

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Doune Castle tours

Doune Castle, built in the 14th century, consists of two strong towers linked by a lower range. Doune Castle tours can be booked on 07305-294773 or contact us online .

Doune Castle is unique in that it actually has four claims to movie fame –

  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail
  • Game of Thrones
  • Outlander
  • the Outlaw King ( Netflix)

Doune Castle was widely used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as the castle of Guy de Lombard .

Take the audio tour of the castle narrated by Monty Python’s Terry Jones.

The two towers form two sides of a courtyard, the other sides enclosed by a high curtain wall. Other ranges were planned to surround the whole courtyard, but were apparently never built. The curtain wall has open rounds at the corners, and corbelled-out semi-circular bartizans midway between the rounds. This was once a lordly residence and remains an impressive old stronghold, probably on the site of an older castle.

doune castle tours, outlander
doune castle tours

The lord’s tower in Doune Castle has vaulted cellars, in the basement, and a fine vaulted hall on the first floor, reached by an external stone stair from the courtyard. The hall has a magnificent double fireplace and a minstrels’ gallery as well as a carved oak screen. A stair, in the thickness of the walls, climbs to the storeys above, which contain many chambers, including the great chamber or upper hall on the second floor, which has been a magnificent room.

Doune Castle was kept as a royal hunting lodge, prison, and dower house for the widows of James III, James IV and James V. It was occasionally used by Mary, Queen of Scots, and was held by forces loyal to her until 1570. This is another castle where a ghostly apparition of Mary has been reported.
Originally dating to the 13th Century, Doune Castle near Stirling plays Castle Leoch, home to Colum MacKenzie and his clan in Outlander TV series .

It also features in the 20th century episode when Claire and Frank Randall visit the castle on a day trip.

Once a Royal residence, Doune Castle was rebuilt by Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany in the late 14th Century.

Doune has appeared several times on screen and was widely used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It also represented the castle Winterfell in Game of Thrones.

Doune Castle tours cost £180 for up to 4 people .

Phone 07305-294773 for bookings or contact us online .

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Doune Castle Game of Thrones Castle in Scotland – Winterfell

Doune Castle was built in  1400 for the first Duke of Albany and provides the setting  for Winterfell in Game of Thrones and Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Visit Doune Castle on a unique private tour of the Game of Thrones Castle in Scotland – Winterfell . Phone 07305-294773 for more details or contact us online .

Doune Castle Game of Thrones tour costs £140 for up to 4 passengers on a private tour from Edinburgh .

 

doune castle tours, outlander
doune castle tours

Doune is one of the best preserved medieval castles in Scotland.
great hall ,doune , outlander

The Great Hall is 20 metres by 8 metres , and 12 metres high to its timber roof, again a 19th-century replacement.The hall has no fireplace, and was presumably heated by a central fire, and ventilated by means of a louvre like the one in the modern roof. No details of the original roof construction are known, however, and the restoration is conjectural.Large windows light the hall, and stairs lead down to the three cellars on ground level.

The hall is accessed from the courtyard via a stair up to a triangular lobby, which in turn links the hall and kitchens by means of two large serving hatches with elliptical arches, unusual for this period. The kitchen tower, virtually a tower house in its own right, is 17 metres (56 ft) by 8 metres (26 ft). The vaulted kitchen is on the hall level, above a cellar. One of the best-appointed castle kitchens in Scotland of its date, it has an oven and a 5.5-metre (18 ft) wide fireplace. A stair turret, added in 1581 and possibly replacing a timber stair, leads up from the lobby to two storeys of guest rooms. These include the “Royal Apartments”, a suite of two bedrooms plus an audience chamber, suitable for royal visitors.

Doune Castle has featured in several literary works, including the 17th-century ballad, “The Bonny Earl of Murray”, which relates the murder of James Stewart, 2nd Earl of Moray, by the Earl of Huntly, in 1592. In Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, Waverley (1814), the protagonist Edward Waverley is brought to Doune Castle by the Jacobites. Scott’s romantic novel describes the “gloomy yet picturesque structure”, with its “half-ruined turrets”.

doune castle , outlander

The castle was used as a location in MGM’s 1952 historical film Ivanhoe which featured Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor. The BBC adaptation of “Ivanhoe” in 1996 also featured Doune as a location. The castle was used as the set for Winterfell in the TV series Game of Thrones (2011–present), an adaptation of the A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels by George R. R. Martin. The castle was used as a stand-in for the fictional “Leoch Castle” in the TV adaption of the Outlander series of novels.

Game of Thrones Castle
Game of Thrones Castle

Find out more about Doune Castle tours – phone 07305-294773 or book online .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five castles tour
Our private group visits five castles used as film locations. This tour visits Doune Castle ( Winterfell in Game of Thrones and Castle Leoch ) ,  Midhope Castle ( Lallybroch ) , Linlithgow Palace (Wentworth Prison ) , Aberdour Castle and Blackness Castle
The Outlander TV series continues to be a smash hit in the UK and America .  Five Scottish castles in particular feature heavily in the story lines – Midhope Castle ( Lallybroch ) , Doune Castle ( Castle Leoch ) , Linlithgow Palace (Wentworth Prison ) , Aberdour Castle ( Sainte Anne de Beaupré’s monastery ) and Blackness Castle ( Fort William army headquarters ) .
1 Midhope Castle – Lallybroch
Those seeking a glimpse of the ancestral home of Jamie Fraser won’t find the real Lallybroch deep in the Highlands.
Scenes were shot at Midhope Castle on the fringes of the Hopetoun Estate near South Queensferry.
Midhope was built in the 15th Century and was built by John Martyne, laird of Medhope. It was rebuilt in the mid 1600s and remains much the same today.
Visitors are asked to admire Midhope from a distance as the interior remains largely derelict.