Muness Castle and Searching for Ruins

Friday, October 28, 2016

After a delicious lunch of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, we left Ordaal House to find Muness Castle, a castle on the southeast corner of the Isle of Unst, about 9 miles away from where we’re staying. This time we had a small map specifically for the Isle of Unst, and were determined not to get lost. Even though I’m terrible at figuring out maps, this one looked fairly basic and easy to follow. After the main road, a left turn, another left turn, and the castle would be at the end of a narrow, curvy road. To our great surprise, it actually was! So many of the tourist attractions and historical sites in Scotland have one sign on the road pointing to their general direction, and after that it’s up to you to figure out which road to turn or not turn on. Most of the time we haven’t found the promised historical sites and end up turning around and going back, but this time we did find it.

There was the castle in front of us, standing tall and proud, though not as proud as it once stood in 1598, the year it was built.

We got out of our warm car and braved the fierce winds, and found a gate that lead us to the outside area of the castle. We walked around the castle and found another gate, and inside this gate was Muness Castle, with its door standing wide open. We later discovered that the latch on the door was broken so it could no longer stay shut. But we couldn’t help but think about who else might be in the castle, as we walked through the dark hallway of the first floor and heard the howling winds and creaking sounds and the crows cawing above us. There was no one else in the castle but our own imaginations

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I used the flashlight on my phone in rooms that were too dark to see as we made our way through the lower level of the castle. In one of the rooms, or cellars, large decorative stones and loopholes from the castle were on display.

In one area of the lower level was an awesome spiral staircase that is no longer in use because the top of it, now protected by barriers, drops off. Though there is still another staircase that can be used to reach the second story of the castle.

The second story is quite a contrast to the lower level because the castle no longer has a roof and has many windows upstairs, so the sunlight made every detail of the second story perfectly visible. 

I’m confused even now as I recall the various rooms of the castle, because there were so many. There are two hallways off the main upstairs area that lead to chambers, and one of the chambers contains the remains of a private staircase.

Muness Castle, designed by Andrew Crawford and built by Laurence Bruce, was burned by French raiders in 1627, and though it is believed to have been repaired, by the end of the 1600s the castle was no longer used. The Dutch East India Company rented the castle in 1713, and in 1718 the original owners of the castle sold it. In 1750, it was once again abandoned and never used again. It’s an amazing site to see, especially since so much of it is still intact. My favorite was how many nooks and crannies and doorways and windows the castle contained.

After touring the castle, we headed out to find Sandwick Beach, a beach not too far from the castle and clearly marked on our map. We couldn’t find it, but on our way to what we thought was Sandwick Beach, we saw five Shetland Ponies right near the road, and two more standing next to a barn. We slowed down since they were so close to the road, and opened our window. Two of them literally tried to shove their heads in our car window. It was hilarious. When they were done inspecting our car, all five of them stood right in front of our car, just staring at us, and eventually walked back to the barn.

Since we couldn’t find the beach, we turned around and headed back to Ordaal House. On our way, we saw a sign pointing to “Sandwick Sites and Viking Longhouses.” Though it didn’t say anything about a beach, we realized how close we were to the water and that this was just another one of Scotland’s confusing road signs. We made our way down a long farm type road and found another sign depicting the various historical sites you can see down by the water.

Though the wind was bitter cold, the walk was beautiful. Fluffy sheep of many colors surrounded us, and the water in front of us was a vivid turquoise.

We did indeed find the crumbled remains of two different buildings, though they didn’t have any signage so we assumed they weren’t the Norse Farm or Iron Age Building shown on the map. Later we realized that according to the map, they must have been those remains, and just didn’t have proper signage.

By the time we started walking back, the sky had some pretty pink clouds in it, but also some dark clouds straight above. It was a long walk back and we were very chilled and out of breath once we got back to our car.

Following the map, we found our way back to Baltasound (the town where Ordaal House is located). Though we didn’t have the directions from our host on how to get to their house, since we had already driven their once and assumed we could easily find our way back the second day, we turned on what we thought was the correct road. It wasn’t. The next road wasn’t correct either, nor the next. We continued to drive around in circles for about an hour. When you don’t have WiFi or a GPS that works properly and all the buildings around you look the same, it’s easy to get lost. Finally, we gave up and parked in the post office parking lot. My Mom walked into the post office and asked if they possibly knew where Ordaal House was located. She was relieved to find that they did, and the lady informed her that the map we were using was junk. It was great to know we weren’t that horrible at reading maps. We had been going the wrong direction around the bay the whole time. Needless to say, we were so glad when we finally reached Ordaal House.