EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

A classic example of an eighteenth-century planned town, INVERARAY was built on the site of a ruined fishing village in 1745 by the third Duke of Argyll, head of the powerful Campbell clan, in order to distance his newly rebuilt castle from the hoi polloi in the town and to establish a commercial and legal centre for the region. Today Inveraray, an absolute set piece of Scottish Georgian architecture, has a truly memorable setting, the brilliant white arches of Front Street reflected in the still waters of Loch Fyne , which separate it from the Cowal peninsula.

Squeezed onto a promontory some distance from the duke's new castle, there's not much more to Inveraray's "New Town" than its distinctive Main Street (set at a right angle to Front Street), flanked by whitewashed terraces, whose window casements are picked out in black. At the top of the street, the road divides to circumnavigate the town's Neoclassical church, originally built in two parts: the southern half served the Gaelic-speaking community, while the northern half served those who spoke English.

East of the church is Inveraray Jail (daily: April-Oct 9.30am-6pm; Nov-March 10am-5pm; £4.90), whose attractive Georgian courthouse and grim prison blocks ceased to function in the 1930s. The jail is now an imaginative and thoroughly enjoyable museum, which graphically recounts prison conditions from medieval times up until the nineteenth century - and even brings it up to date by including a picture of life in Barlinnie Prison. You can also sit in the beautiful semicircular courthouse and listen to the trial of a farmer accused of fraud.

A ten-minute walk north of the New Town, the neo-Gothic Inveraray Castle (July & Aug Mon-Sat 10am-5.45pm, Sun 1-5.45pm; April-June, Sept & Oct Mon-Thurs & Sat 10am-1pm & 2-5.45pm, Sun 1-5.45pm; £5.50) remains the family home of the Duke of Argyll. Built in 1745 by the third duke, it was given a touch of the Loire in the nineteenth century with the addition of dormer windows and conical roofs. Inside, the most startling feature is the armoury hall, whose displays of weaponry - supplied to the Campbells by the British government to put down the Jacobites - rise through several storeys; look out for Rob Roy's rather sad-looking sporran and dirk handle (a "dirk" being a dagger, traditionally worn in Highland dress).