As we were on the lookout for anything historical during our stay in Galloway, Scotland in 2010 we made sure to pay a visit to Threave Castle as soon as we realised it was on an island in the River Dee. The 14th century stronghold was built by Archibald Douglas or, to give him his full title, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Douglas and Wigtown, Lord of Galloway, Douglas and Bothwell. He was also known as Archibald the Grim which is a little catchier.
There wasn’t a huge amount to see as the ruins of Threave Castle itself are quite small although its location and views were pretty good even under not the prettiest of skies.
The main thing for us, though, was that Threave Castle was on an island. We’d guessed there would be a bridge to it but we soon discovered it could only be reached by boat. As a fun element to the visit the boatman would only come to ferry you across when you rang a bell so we duly did that before our trip to the castle’s keep. After we’d returned to the mainland and explored the garden areas for a bit we passed the pontoon to get across to the island again and saw a group of people standing there, waiting, looking across the water to the boatman who was simply looking back. They hadn’t realised the bell needed ringing. Luckily for them my wife walked down, struck the bell, and we wandered off as we heard the boat finally start up and head towards the sheepish-looking visitors.
