The story of Loch Leven Castle

You reach this castle the way its prisoners did – by boat, since it stands on an island in Loch Leven. A castle may have stood here as early as 1257, when King Alexander III, then 16 years old, was forcibly brought here by his regents. In 1335 the English besieged it, and a 14th-century chronicle claims they built a dam across the loch's outflow to flood the castle; when their captain left for a festival, the defenders slipped out at night, broke the dam and flooded the English camp instead.

Its most famous prisoner was Mary, Queen of Scots, held here in 1567–68 and forced to give up her crown. She escaped with help from her gaoler's own family. In 1675 the architect Sir William Bruce bought the castle as a focal point for his garden, and no one lived in it again.

The ferry runs in summer.