The most overrated castle in Scotland
How a derelict tower house became a top attraction
Scotland has more than 1500 castles spread across the country. From fairy tale castles to ruined ones, each one of them has its own appeal. However, some of the tourists who comes to Scotland seems to have one target in mind, which is to visit Lallybroch.
Lallybroch, also known as ‘Broch Tuarach’ is the family home of Jamie Fraser who is a fictional character from the tv series “Outlander”. Lallybroch is the screen name for Midhope Castle. In reality, it's not even a castle, it’s a tower house built in the 16th century. However, after gotten cast in Outlander, it has now become one of the top attractions in Scotland.
Due to its poor condition, when you visit Midhope Castle, you can’t enter inside. So what you see is what you get. No stunning views, no having a look inside and no facilities (even toilets). They also have an entrance fee of £5 to enter.
I knew all of this when I visited Midhope. But I had to see what was all this talk about. The first mistake I did when I visited Midhope is that I expected to buy the tickets at the gate. This is during the pandemic. So they no longer offered the option to buy the tickets at the gate. This is okay as we can always go online and book from our phones. But we were dumbfounded to find none of us could get a phone signal. We even walked around the area trying to catch a signal. We finally stopped fooling around, got into the car and drove until we got a mobile signal strong enough to book the tickets and came back.
Once you enter from the main gate, there is a very short walk up to the castle. Since we were the only people visiting, we had the castle to ourselves. The total time we spent there is around 5 –10 minutes because apart from what you see in the above photo there is nothing else.
Bear in mind that this article comes from a person living in Edinburgh, the city where you even have a castle in the middle. A person who have visited numerous castles across the United Kingdom, and do it as a hobby. Compared to them, this is just an overrated attraction that would never have come to the limelight unless for Outlander.
If you are a die-hard Outlander fan visiting Scotland for the sole reason of visiting the filming locations, go ahead. But if you are not, do not waste your time here. Scotland has much more to offer than derelict tower houses.
