Aros Castle 

     With commanding views over the Sound of Mull, Aros Castle is located at the mouth of the Aros River, where it enters Salen Bay on the north eastern coastline of the island of Mull in Argyll and Bute.  Aros is thought to have been built at the beginning of the 14th century by the MacDougalls, before passing to the MacDonald Lords of the Isles.  After their forfeiture in 1493 it was acquired by the MacLeans of Duart.  They held it until the end of the 17th century.  Like almost all MacLean property, it became a property of the Campbell Earls of Argyll and was probably abandoned around this time.  
     Little remains of this 13th Century castle.  Internally, few features have survived the ravishes of time.  The ground floor is filled with fallen rubble from above.  At first floor level there is a large pointed window in the north wall, this no doubt lighting the hall.  The main stair was housed in a projecting tower at the north-west angle.  It is believed that treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon is buried amongst the ruins and it was in Aros Castle that Lord Ochiltree in 1608 gathered together the Highland chiefs for dinner aboard his ship before imprisoning them and taking them south to Blackness, Dumbarton and Stirling.   

  
Aros Castle

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