Skibo Castle is located to the west of Dornoch

Dornoch

Dornoch is a town and seaside resort, and former Royal burgh in the Highlands of Scotland. It lies on the north shore of the Dornoch Firth, near to where it opens into the Moray Firth to the east...

 in the Highland

Highland (council area)

Highland is a council area in the Scottish Highlands and is the largest local government area in both Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole. It shares borders with the council areas of Moray, Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross, and Argyll and Bute. Their councils, and those of Angus and...

 county of Sutherland

Sutherland

Sutherland is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic administrative county of Scotland. It is now within the Highland local government area. In Gaelic the area is referred to according to its traditional areas: Dùthaich 'IcAoidh , Asainte , and Cataibh...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 overlooking the Dornoch Firth

Dornoch Firth

The Dornoch Firth is a firth on the east coast of Highland, in northern Scotland. It forms part of the boundary between Ross and Cromarty, to the south, and Sutherland, to the north....

. Although the castle dates back to the 12th century, the present structure is largely of the 19th century, and early 20th century, when it was the home of industrialist Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...

. It is now operated as the Carnegie Club, a members-only hotel and country club.

Etymology

According to William J. Watson

William J. Watson

Professor William J. Watson was a toponymist, one of the greatest Scottish scholars of the 20th century, and was the first scholar to place the study of Scottish place names on a firm linguistic basis....

, Skibo is the anglicisation

Anglicisation

Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...

 of Scottish Gaelic Sgìobal, which in turn comes from an Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 name meaning either firewood-steading or Skithi's steading.
It is also said that the name Skibo derives from the word schytherbolle, which is Gaelic for fairyland.

History

Construction of Skibo Castle was started by Gilbert de Moravia

Gilbert de Moravia

Gilbert de Moravia , later known as Saint Gilbert of Dornoch, was the most famous Bishop of Caithness and founder of Dornoch Cathedral....

, the Bishop of Caithness

Bishop of Caithness

The Bishop of Caithness was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Caithness, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics. The first referenced bishop of Caithness was Aindréas, a Gael who appears in sources between 1146 and 1151 as bishop. Aindréas spent much if not all of his career outside his...

, around 1186 at "Schytherbolle" in the southern area of his bishopric

Diocese

A diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...

. Skibo Castle remained the residence of subsequent bishops until 1545, when the estate was, as a tactical measure by the church, given to John Gray in order to reinforce its alliance with a powerful family as the threat of a Protestant uprising spread towards the north.

In 1745, Robert Gray surrendered the estate. It was later bought by a relative who built a modern house before 1760. Its ownership changed frequently until 1872, when it was bought by Evan Charles Sutherland-Walker, who extended the house and improved the grounds. However, the condition of the building had declined by 1897, when wealthy industrialist Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...

 took a one year lease, with an option to buy. In 1898 he exercised that option for £85,000. However its condition had declined so much by this time that a further £2 million was spent on improvements, including an increase in area from 16000 square feet (1,486.4 m²) to over 60000 square feet (5,574.2 m²), plus the creation of Loch Ospisdale and an 18-hole golf course.

Skibo stayed with the Carnegie family until 1982. It was later purchased by businessman Peter de Savary

Peter de Savary

Peter John de Savary is an English entrepreneur and a former Chairman of Millwall F.C. In the 1999 Sunday Times Rich List, he was placed in 971st place with an estimated fortune of £21 million, but was not listed in the top thousand places in subsequent editions.-Biography:De Savary built his...

 and used as the foundation of a private members club, the Carnegie Club. Establishment of the club required restoration of the castle to recreate the luxury of an Edwardian sporting estate. Similar renovation was undertaken on the many lodges located amongst the castle grounds to provide additional accommodation for club members. De Savary sold the club to Ellis Short

Ellis Short

Ellis Short is a Dallas-based Irish American businessman, president of Lone Star Funds based in Texas...

 in 2003, for £23million. In 2007, Mrs Short allegedly threatened to shoot a retired couple’s dogs because they were walking across the estate; in Scots law

Scots law

Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is considered a hybrid or mixed legal system as it traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. With English law and Northern Irish law it forms the legal system of the United Kingdom; it shares with the two other systems some...

, the concept of trespass

Trespass

Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels and trespass to land.Trespass to the person, historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, wounding, mayhem, and maiming...

 on open land does not exist. In May 2011, a shoot manager on the Skibo Estate was convicted of possessing over 10.5kg of carbofuran

Carbofuran

Carbofuran is one of the most toxic carbamate pesticides. It is marketed under the trade names Furadan, by FMC Corporation and Curater, among several others. It is used to control insects in a wide variety of field crops, including potatoes, corn and soybeans...

, a pesticide  banned in the UK since 2001.

The Carnegie Club

The Carnegie Club is a members-only hotel and club, with about 400 members. The Carnegie links golf course has fewer than 1000 rounds played on it per annum. The funds raised from membership fees are reinvested, including upgrading some holes of the golf course. The club has received planning permission for restoration of the swimming pool.

The Carnegie Club hosted Madonna

Madonna (entertainer)

Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

's wedding reception to Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie

Guy Stuart Ritchie is an English screenwriter and film maker who directed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Revolver, RocknRolla and Sherlock Holmes.-Early life:...

 on 22 December 2000. In 1995, it had hosted the marriage of golf

Golf

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

er Sam Torrance

Sam Torrance

Sam Torrance OBE is a Scottish professional golfer and sports commentator. He was one of the leading players on the European Tour from the mid 1970s to the late 1990s, with 21 Tour wins. Torrance was a member of European Ryder Cup teams on eight occasions, from 1981 to 1995 consecutively; he was...

 and the actress Suzanne Danielle

Suzanne Danielle

Suzanne Danielle is an English film and television actress, the wife of the golfer Sam Torrance.Danielle is a stage name; while growing up she was Suzanne Morris.-Career:...

. On 28 December 1997 it hosted the marriage of actor Robert Carlyle

Robert Carlyle

Robert Carlyle, OBE is a Scottish film and television actor. He is known for a variety of roles including those in Trainspotting, Hamish Macbeth, The Full Monty, The World Is Not Enough, Angela's Ashes, The 51st State, and 28 Weeks Later...

 and his wife Anastasia Shirley.

On 3 December 2006, the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

Television programme Landward featured the Burnett family who for several generations had been tenants of a farm on Skibo estate. The programme highlighted their search for a new farm following their eviction by the estate. The farm is now part of an off-road driving facility for the use of paying guests of the castle. In March 2008, Skibo became a "members only" club, with only members and guests allowed to stay there.

Castle grounds

The grounds include Lake Louise, a very small artificial lake, and one of only a few bodies of water in Scotland known as lakes. The estate is listed on the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, the list of nationally significant designed landscapes in Scotland.

External links

• The Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle
• Skibo Estate, Gazetteer for Scotland