The original house at Ormiclate is said to have been commenced by Allan, 9th of Clanranald but that he died, in 1593, before its compietion. A fragment of this old house stili remains. Allan, 14th of Clanranald, who fell at Sheriffmuir in 1715, lived in this house prior to his short exile in France after the Jacobite Rising of 1689-90 and when he and his new wife returned to Scotland in 1695, she did not consider the house suitable to her tastes and comfort to which she had been used on the Continent.
Allan, therefore, brought an architect from France and set about having a new house built in the style of a French chateau. According to tradition the new house took seven years to build and the couple spent seven happy years within its walls until Allan left to join the Earl of Mar in 1715, when he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Sheriffmuir.
The couple having had no children, the Chiefship of Clanranald passed to his only brother, Ranald, who, also having been at Sheriffmuir, had to go into exile in France where he died, unmarried, in 1725.
According to tradition the new chateau, or castle, which had been renowned throughout the Highlands for the generous hospitality offered by Allan and his lady, Penelope MacKenzie, was accidentally burned down on the same day on which the Battle of Sheriffmuir was fought, 13th November, 1715. The story runs that, the Chief and his lady being absent, the servant maids proposed to the gamekeeper, with whom they had become very familiar, that he should kill a deer for a feast. This he did and the girls put the venison in a pot on a blazing peat fire, after which they carelessly left the kitchen. The pot boiled over and the castle, before the day was out, was reduced to ashes. One can only imagine the invaiuable family possessions which must have been destroyed; household and personal goods, family portraits and important documents, no doubt, were all lost.
The Castle, which had two storeys and an attic was built on a T-shaped plan, the main block measuring 69 feet by 25 feet, running north-east and south-west, and the wing, 21 feet by 22 feet, projecting southwards. The entrance is represented by a wide gap in the north wall, above which is an armorial panel representing a helm, mantling and shield, the latter being parted per pale and charged in the upper dexter (nght) corner with a lion rampant above a hand couped, grasping a cross. The charge in the upper sinister (left) corner is obliterated and below is a Iymphad, i.e. a war-galley These charges are inverted on a stone at Howmore burial-ground.
Information taken from Newsletter of the Clan Donald Society of Edinburgh, and written by Norman H.MacDonald
