Finlarig Castle ruins are freely open to the public with a small car park nearby.
FINLARIG – The white or holy pass;
The old road to the bank of the Lochay from Morenish passed over this pass at Druim na lairig, the ridge of the pass… The ruins of the Castle of Finlarig stand on a prominence to the east of a larger mound called Dunlochay, the site of a prehistoric fort.
The castle was surrounded at one time by a moat. Judging from the present ruins the building was rectangular in shape, having a square tower on the south-west… The castle appears to have been four storeys in height… There was once a spiral stair at the north-east corner of the building, and one also on the west side… The only entrance to the castle now intact is on the south and above the door-way there is a stone bearing the Royal Arms, and the letters, I R, A R, 1609. These are the initials of king James VI. and his Queen, Anne of Denmark, with both of whom Sir Duncan Campbell, the first baronet, was on friendly terms…
Close by the castle is a pit with a beheading block, having a cavity for the reception of the head, where persons of gentle birth were executed. The common people were hanged on an oak tree. A branch from which the culprits were said to have been suspended was cut down some forty years ago, and showed a deep groove caused by the friction of the rope. Gruesome stories used to be told of the beheadings and the hangings at Finlarig in “Black Duncan’s” time, but many of the details were probably inventions of the narrators.