Dumbarton Castle Snotland on N.O.B.

Have been meaning to go explore this castle since I discovered its existence. So with a day off and the fun shining I headed off on N.O.B. (New Old Bike).

There has been a fortress here for over 1500yrs held by Britons, Vikings and Scots. This makes it one of the oldest fortified strongholds in Britain and it is still a royal castle today.

I love castles, have done since a summer spent exploring probably 20+ castles in the UK when I was a child. Dumbarton Castle doesn’t dissapoint either, it has a fantastic history and enough of it remains to see how it would ave looked in its prime. It would have been a right bugger to attack too as it is inaccessible except from by one narrow route in unless you are Spiderman or can fly that is lol.

The main building that has survived is the prison built to house any French invaders

Some ruins still remain of other buildings too

There are loads of wildlife in the grounds, the ground is really fertile although not very easily plant-able as it is built on an extinct volcano, which in its day would have been 3 times as large…. so around 750′ tall.

You can just about see my bike parked at the bottom

The rocks are now 240′ so there was a lot of stairs to climb… 500+

The only way up

and a nice flag seein as its Jubilee weekend lol

I came back through the Argyll Forest and had a play down a fire track

Apparently this is good luck…. I just think it is messy lol