Inveraray Castle may be the one chance you will have in Argyll, outside the country house hotels, to see the interior of a country house which is still a family home. The parts which are open to the public are the main reception rooms and a suite of former bedrooms. These are of course separate from the private side of the house. One of the upstairs rooms is now the `clan' room containing a vast Campbell family tree showing how the chiefly kindred, whose ancestry is known, branched off the main line, with the heraldic shields of each. There is also a fine topographic wall map. In the towering entrance hall the ceiling shows the shields of different Campbell families. The castle is within walking distance of the town and the hotel-restaurant but there is also a parking area outside the visitor's entrance. There is a Castle Shop on the lower level opening off the moat. Check ahead to find hours, days and months when the castle is open to the public. Your best chance to meet your chief may be at the Inveraray Games or on one of his visits to The Clan Campbell Society. However if you do need to find out whether you can make an appointment for a meeting at Inveraray it should be done in writing through the Chief Executive of Clan Campbell well in advance. An approach by telephone or FAX is not appropriate when considering that the chief has to make a living like the rest of us and there are said to be several million Campbells worldwide, any of whom might turn up at Inveraray at any time.
Alastair Campbell of Airds in the Clan room at Inveraray.
The diagram rises to the next floor. It shows the many branches of the Clan Campbell.
