![Little Cumbrae Island by William Johnson 1828](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Little_Cumbrae_Island_by_William_Johnson_1828.jpg)
Castle Island ( gd, Eilean a' Chaisteil) or Allimturrail
["The Island of Little Cumbrae"](_blank)
(pdf) Humberts Leisure. Retrieved 15 Sept 2011. is a small
tidal island
A tidal island is a piece of land that is connected to the mainland by a natural or man-made causeway that is exposed at low tide and submerged at high tide. Because of the mystique surrounding tidal islands, many of them have been sites of ...
, lying off the east coast of
Little Cumbrae
Little Cumbrae ( sco, Wee Cumbrae, gd, Cumaradh Beag) or Little Cumbrae Island is an island in the Firth of Clyde, in North Ayrshire, Scotland. The island is known locally as Wee Cumbrae.
Etymology
The Gaelic name ''Cumaradh'' means "place of t ...
, and to the west of Trail Island, in the
Firth of Clyde
The Firth of Clyde is the mouth of the River Clyde. It is located on the west coast of Scotland and constitutes the deepest coastal waters in the British Isles (it is 164 metres deep at its deepest). The firth is sheltered from the Atlantic ...
. It is joined to Little Cumbrae at low tide.
The
castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
which gives the island its name was built in 1527, and was destroyed by
Cromwellian
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in History of England, English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 ...
forces in 1650. It is a square keep, and is said to have been built originally to prevent deer poaching.
Footnotes
Islands of the Clyde
The Cumbraes
Islands of North Ayrshire
{{NorthAyrshire-geo-stub