Dumbarton Castle

Dumbarton Rock, a volcanic plug of basalt, possibly has a longer recorded history as a stronghold than any other place in Britain. From at least the fifth century a.d. until 1018 it was the centre of the independent British kingdom of Strathclyde; in medieval Scotland it was an important royal castle; in more recent times Dumbarton's importance gradually declined, but it "was garrisoned until the twentieth century. Dumbarton's Dark Age buildings and defences hive been obliterated, and little survives from the Middle Ages. The most interesting structures are the fortifications of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which illustrate a painful struggle by military engineers to adapt a problem site to contemporary defensive needs. Located half a  mile south of Dumbarton East Station on the north shore of the Firth of Clyde.