277 Iconic Buildings to Explore in Scotland

Checkout places to visit in Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain. Mainland Scotland has a 96 mile (154 km) border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast, and the Irish Sea to the south. Scotland includes more than 790 islands.

Iconic Buildings by destinations in Scotland

Aberdeenshire (23)

South Ayrshire Council (22)

Dumfries and Galloway (21)

Angus Council (20)

East Lothian Council (15)

Argyll and Bute Council (14)

Popular Activities And Trips in Scotland

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Iconic Buildings to Explore in Scotland

Abbot House is a beautiful ‘A’ listed building, dating back to at least the 16th Century. It’s situated within Dunfermline’s Heritage Quarter and is steeped in the rich history of Scotland’s ancient capital. The house is instantly recognisable by its colour and is known fondly as the ‘pink hoose’ by locals. As the oldest surviving secular building within Dunfermline town, and a survivor of the Great Fire of Dunfermline in 1624, the building is indicative of the changing styles of Scottish archit

Aberdour Castle

Aberdour Castle lies close to Aberdour's railway station. It is a building that over a five hundred year period slowly moved from west to east with the successive building of new stages of accommodation more suited to the needs and aspirations of the owners of the day. The earliest part of the castle was a modest hall house, on a site overlooking the Dour Burn. Over the next 400 years, the castle was successively expanded according to contemporary architectural ideas. The hall house became a tow

Abergeldie Castle

Abergeldie Castle is a modest 16th century four-floor tower house overlooking the River Dee a short distance downstream of the Royal family’s hunting lodge of Balmoral Castle. It consists of a single rectangular tower with a round turret which serves all three floors and the attic, and is not accessible to the public. Behind it rises Creag nam Ban, a rounded granite hill about 527 metres high, and across the river to its front is the cairn-crowned Geallaig Hill, rising to 743 metres.

A fine exmaple of a late 15th century tower-house on the L-plan. It contains four storeys and a garret; the walls are of coursed rubble. The ashlar corbelled parapet and angle turrets are of 16th c date, as are the crow-stepped gables and chimney stacks. The castle was built on the lands of the Auchenlecks of that Ilk. In the early 18th century it belonged to a family of Reids, who forfeited the castle in 1746 because of their activities as Jacobites. It has not been occupied since 1760, when a

Auldbar Castle, was a 16th-century tower house, located 2 miles southwest of Brechin, in Angus, Scotland. IT was owned by the Crammond family since the 13th century before it was sold to John Lyon, 8th Lord Glamis in 1575. His son Sir Thomas Lyon served as Treasurer of Scotland from 1585 to 1595, and built the castle in the later 16th century. The property was subsequently owned by the Sinclair family, and then the Young family

Allander Leisure Centre

A majestic leisure centre located in the heart of East Danbartonshire. The facilities at the Allander Leisure Centre include two swimming pools, a sports hall and a fitness suite.The centre offers 45 fitness classes a week and the sports hall is used for badminton, basketball and gymnastics as well as other sports. There are three indoor five-a-side pitches, an indoor tennis court, two squash courts and a steam room.

One of the largest and finest towers of its type in Scotland, it was home to the distinguished Erskine family, Earls of Mar, from the later 14th century until 1800. By 1693 a mansion, kitchen tower, brew house and other buildings had been added. In 1702 John, 6th Earl of Mar, began to convert the tower into an elegant modern house and created an ambitious and extensive planned landscape around his home.

Almond Castle is a ruined L-plan castle dating from the 15th century. It is located 3 miles west of Linlithgow, and north of the Union Canal, in Falkirk, Scotland. It was known as Haining Castle until the 17th century. The structure is unsound and is protected as a scheduled monument. The ruin has a vaulted basement. The hall was on the first floor, while there is a kitchen in the wing. There is a courtyard, with a wall and ditch, enclosing the remains of 16th-century buildings.

The Antonine Wall, known to the Romans as Vallum Antonini, was a turf fortification on stone foundations, built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. Built some twenty years after Hadrian's Wall to the south, and intended to supersede it, while it was garrisoned it was the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire. It spanned approximately 63 kilometres and was about 3 metres high and 5 metres wide.

Ardgowan estate

Ardgowan House is a late 18th-century mansion, set in a stunning 10,000 acre coastal Estate on the Firth of Clyde near Inverkip, Scotland. Ardgowan is located in Inverclyde, in the former county of Renfrewshire. The Ardgowan estate has been held by the Stewart family since the early 15th century: towards the end of that century, their tower house Ardgowan Castle was built within the site of the previous Inverkip Castle.

Ardgowan House is a Grade 1 listed Palladian Country Mansion wedding venue located in Inverkip near Glasgow on the coast. It has been held by the Stewart family since the early 15th century: towards the end of that century, their tower house Ardgowan Castle was built within the site of the previous Inverkip Castle fortress. The present house was erected in 1797 and completed in 1801 from designs by Cairncross.

Ardrossan Castle

Ardrossan Castle is situated on the west coast of Scotland in the town of Ardrossan, Ayrshire. The castle, defended by a moat, stands on a ridge above the town. There is a keep dating from the fifteenth century, and a vaulted range containing a kitchen and cellars. In a deep passageway there is a well. Part of the keep remains up to the corbels of the parapet, but it is in ruins. The original castle, owned by Clan Barclay, was partly destroyed during the Wars of Scottish Independence.

Ardstinchar Castle

A medieval castle ruin sitting high up on the hills above ballantrae which was built by clan kennedy that succumbed to the conflict over Crossmaguel Abbey in 1601. There is a good walk that passes the castle. The original castle was wedge-shaped and had three square towers connected by battlement walls. The gatehouse was on the north side, and the keep was in the southeast part of the courtyard with a long hall house alongside.

Argyll's Lodging

Argyll's Lodging is the most complete surviving example of a seventeenth century town house in Scotland. It can be found in the upper part of Stirling, just below Stirling Castle's Esplanade. The house sits behind a screen wall and comprises a collection of buildings built in two phases and in three ranges around an enclosed courtyard.

A vast greenish 6000 acre esstate which offers accomodation, hosts special events, weddings and tours, surrounded by beautiful gardens and forestry. It has been home to the Dundas family for over 400 years. The house is of three storeys over a basement. The most significant interiors are William Adam's two-storey, galleried saloon, with decorative plasterwork by Joseph Enzer, and the Rococo dining room and drawing room, by the Adam brothers.

A large impressive mansion and Category A listed, T-plan building of a late 16th-century date converted to the L-plan during the early-to-mid-17th century; its ruins stand about 1 km W of Dundonald, South Ayrshire, Scotland. Parish of Dundonald. It was held at various times by the Wallace, Cochrane and Montgomerie families.

Auchencloigh Castle

Auchincloigh Castle is a ruined fortification near the Burnton Burn, lying within the feudal lands of the Craufurd Clan, situated in the Parish of Ochiltree, East Ayrshire, Scotland. The monument consists of the remains of a medieval tower house situated 100m E of Auchencloigh Farm.The fragmentary remains consist of several massive sections of lime- bonded whinstone rubble walling. The building appears to have been rectangular and of considerable strength

Auchindoun Castle

Auchindoun Castle is a 15th-century L-Plan tower castle located in Auchindoun near Dufftown in Banffshire, Scotland. It stands in a superb defensive location at a height of nearly 1,000ft just over two miles south east of Dufftown. Immediately to the south and east the ground falls away steeply into the valley of the River Fiddich, and the location offers control over one of the main routes south from Speyside into Aberdeenshire, today followed by the A941.

Map of Iconic Buildings to Explore in Scotland