August 16th 1545

The Wolf's legacy

The Wolf lies in Dunkeld Abbey

Castle Garth is a square, grim looking building perched on an island in the Keltney burn, some three miles from Coshieville at the mouth of Glen Lyon. Even today it can only be approached from Keltneyburn village by a long winding and exceedingly rough track.

When it was built by Alexander Stewart, the Wolf of Badenoch, it must have seemed impregnable. It was much used by the Wolf, who added to his evil reputation by his unsocial habit of hurling his enemies from the castle battlements to the Keltney Burn some hundred feet below.

After Alexander’s death, the family continued to live in the castle comparatively peacefully until some 150 years later when Neil Gointe Stewart became laird and like his famous ancestor started to display some distinctly anti-social peculiarities.

He burned down the nearby Weem Castle, home of the chief of the Clan Menzies, but eventually came to grief in a more domestic manner. The facts are given in a somewhat cryptic entry in the diary of the curate of Fortingall. “Death of Mariota, daughter of Donald McQueen, spouse of Neil Stewart of Garth who died or was killed by Alexander Stewart, in a burn below the Castle of Garth, negligently by a blow of a stone”

Though Alexander Stewart committed the crime, Neil was accused of plotting the death of his wife. He was imprisoned in his own dungeon where he remained until his death nine years later.