Mature Flâneur
The Magnificent Wreck of Ardvreck Castle
And the rise of the crofters of Assynt
The wrecked castle Ardvreck is perhaps the most magnificent ruin in Scotland. It captures the haunting, bleak beauty of the Highlands so perfectly that after Teresa (my beloved spouse) took this photo (above) in 2017, we blew it up to 36"x48" on canvas and hung it on a wall in our home in Bethesda, Maryland. Every time we looked at it, we remembered this wild world that we loved and longed for.
The last time we saw Ardvreck was during a weird summer storm: a massive cloud bank rolled across the sky like a crashing atmospheric tidal wave. The sky grew black beneath the seething, churning cloud, and we felt afraid. It roiled over Loch Assynt, and fairly flew past the castle, which is on a little peninsula in the middle of the loch.
We imagined what it might have been like for the lords of the castle in centuries past, living way out here in this isolated loch, during storms like these or worse — mindful that the final destruction of its tower was not from siege nor battle, but by lightning strike.
