Dunrobin Castle (2)
So why did I originally decide that Dunrobin did <u>not</u> belong in my castle list?

It all comes back to the question of - 'When is a castle a castle?'  This is a question to which everyone is thoroughly entitled to have their own answer of course, however different they may be from mine!  And anyway, the rules that frame my own personal views are not hard and fast, there are exceptions.  In other words I have my own strict views on what the criteria for 'a castle' are and there are exceptions to them all!!

For me, a castle is a building that was: 

(1) designed as a place to live in; that 
(2) also provided protection from attack for those inside it (defensive features), and 
(3) was built at a time when it was still necessary to have defensive features - which in Scotland broadly means before 1700.  

So by that definition:-

~ A 2WW naval gun emplacement is not a castle, because it was not intended to be lived in and wasn't built before 1700.
~ Edinburgh Castle is a castle, because although it is essentially a gun emplacement, it was also intended to be lived in (and was built before 1700). 
~ An Englishman's home is not his castle because although it is designed to be lived in, it has no defensive features and (and was built in the late 1940s or 1950s!).
~ A Scottish tower-house is a castle because it meets all 3 requirements above.
~ An exact replica of a Scottish tower-house, copied stone for stone and built in China, is not a castle, because although it may have been built to be lived in and has defensive features, those features were redundant when built and it wasn't built before 1700. 

That is all slightly simplistic and the subject can get much more complicated than that, but one rule I pretty much stick firmly to, is that no building built after 1700 can count as a castle, because it contravenes rule #3 - i.e. it was not build at a time when castellation was necessary or in any way still effective.  

Everything you can see in the picture above, was built in the 19th century - or was it??
dji0436crop scotland 2022 dunrobincastle golspie sutherland earlsofsutherland fairytalecastle dukesofsutherland