Scotland Part 2 – Outlander Tour & Sites

I am a big fan of the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon, as well as the TV series adapted from the books. It is a saga involving romance, action, drama, history, and time travel, with a strong female character. The basic premise is that Claire, a British WWII combat nurse who is on vacation with her husband in Scotland, accidentally travels back in time 200 years to the same location. She falls in love with 18th century highlander Jamie Fraser, and many adventures ensue. Some people are turned off of the TV show by the graphic violence and sex. Personally I don’t like that either, and sometimes have to close my eyes or fast forward. The books are a completely different experience, being long and with more every day happenings in between all the drama. Also, the way you imagine the intense scenes when you are reading is quite a bit different than what you see on TV.

While planning our trip to Scotland this summer, I was excited about the prospect of seeing some Outlander filming sites. We signed up for a one day Rabbie’s Outlander Tour originating in Glasgow. I picked one of several tour options that worked out logistically, and that included three castles and two towns used as filming locations for the TV show. The sites included in the tour are places that would be interesting for anyone who likes history, even if you are not an Outlander fan. Click here for a map of the stops on the tour. In addition, I saw a few other sites in Glasgow and Edinburgh that were not part of the Rabbie’s Tour.

I published a blog post in July 2020 about a tie shawl I knit that is similar to shawls worn by Claire in the TV show (click here for the link) . That post has gotten the most views of all my blog posts by a very large margin. I assume this is due to having Outlander in the title and also including Outlander tags on the post. As of today, the all time number of views of the “Outlander Inspired Tie Shawl” post is 12,393. I have a few posts that have around 2,400 views, and a few with 500 or 600. Most posts have closer to 70 or fewer. It will be interesting to see what happens with this post.

Spoiler alert if you have not watched all of the TV episodes or read the books, as specific events and scenes will be mentioned. I am going to assume that readers are familiar with the characters and locations in the story. If you are not, there is a detailed summary on Wikipedia here.

The first stop on the Rabbie’s tour was Doune Castle, which was used for Castle Leoch in the TV series. Castle Leoch is the home of Colum and Dougal MacKenzie, Jamie Fraser’s uncles. Jamie and Claire arrive there on horseback when we first see it in Episode 1, after Claire has accidentally time traveled through some standing stones from 1945 to 1743. On the show there are many scenes of daily life in the castle.

This castle was also used for filming scenes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Game of Thrones.

The kitchen at Doune Castle was recreated exactly in the studio for filming. There was a massive fireplace.

The next stop on the tour was the town of Falkland, used as the filming site for 1940’s Inverness. The real city of Inverness is farther to the north. This is where Claire and Frank are having a second honeymoon after WWII is over. Frank is doing genealogy research on his ancestor from the 1700’s, Black Jack Randall. There is a well known scene that takes place here where the (presumed) ghost of Jamie is standing in the square looking up at Claire in the window of the bed and breakfast where she and Frank are staying. We got a photo of Wayne standing in the same spot where Jamie is standing in the TV episode.

In the story, Claire and Frank are staying at Mrs. Baird’s Bed and Breakfast. The building used for filming is called the Covenanter Hotel. We had a lovely lunch there.

The sign for the Bed and Breakfast used for filming is hanging inside the building.

Following is another view from the village square. The shop with the green door is where Claire looks at a vase in the window.

The third stop on the tour was Midhope Castle, the filming site for Lallybroch, Jamie’s family home. There was a fire at Midhope Castle, so the interior is not accessible. A big board with photos taken during filming was set up outside. The following photo from the display shows Claire and Jamie riding away from Lallybroch.

And here is a photo I took of the same view, but closer to the gate.

Filming for Outlander season eight was recently completed, and also a prequel about Jamie’s parents and Claire’s parents is underway. I had been thinking that it would be fun to see some actual filming. In reality, if that had been going on during the dates we were in Scotland the sites would not have been open for tourists.

I read online that a plan was approved in 2022 to turn the Midhope Castle site into a Distillery with meeting rooms and accommodations. That would be amazing and popular, but we did not see any evidence of construction or improvements.

The forth stop on the tour was Blackness Castle, used as the filming site for Fort William in the show. There is a real Fort William farther to the north. Fort William is where Jamie gets flogged, and where he has to rescue Claire from Black Jack Randall.

There was a tour guide in costume talking about life in the castle and Outlander scenes filmed there. For the scene where Jamie has to rescue Claire, he climbs up the outside of the building and into the room where Black Jack Randall is keeping Claire. Some creative license is used during filming, because the room is not actually at the location where Jamie climbs up the wall. There was also some running up of stairs that did not line up with where Jamie ends up after that on the show. After Jamie gets Claire, they make their escape by jumping off an outside wall into the water. In actuality there is not any water there.

Following is a photo taken inside the courtyard where Jamie gets flogged.

The fifth and last stop on the Outlander tour was the picturesque town of Culross. This location was used as the filming site for the village of Cranesmuir in the TV series due to the many preserved 17th and 18th century buildings. Cranesmuir is the village near Castle Leoch where Geillis Duncan and her husband live at the beginning of the series. Claire frequents the town regularly for supplies, and to visit with Geillis. The witchcraft trial takes place in this town.

The ochre colored Culross Palace in Culross was built around 1600. The yellow paint was too expensive for commoners, so was considered a sign of opulence.

A couple of Outlander scenes take place at the square in the following photo, including one where a boy has his ear nailed to a post.

For filming the buildings were all painted gray to make the location less recognizable. After filming was complete the buildings were repainted in the original colors.

The garden behind the palace was used as the filming site for Claire’s herb garden at Castle Leoch.

There was a great view of Culross from behind the palace.

While in Glasgow and Edinburgh, I saw a few more filming sites that were not part of the Rabbie’s tour. The cloisters area of the University of Glasgow campus was used as a filming site for Harvard University, when Clair and Frank live in Boston in the 20th century. Harvard does not actually look like this, not sure why they used it for filming.

There is another Outlander filming site in Glasgow that I did not get to see. The Glasgow Cathedral was used for the scenes in France when Claire volunteers at the L’Hopital des Anges.

I saw a couple of Outlander filming sites in Edinburgh. Jamie has to rescue Mr. Willowby at the World’s End Pub on the Royal mile. Back when Edinburgh was a walled city, this 16th century pub was just inside the wall, thus the end of the world as known by many of the inhabitants. It was very close to our lodging and still a busy pub.

When Claire goes back to the 18th century after she finds out that Jamie is not dead, he has a print shop in Edinburgh. The filming location is on Bakehouse Close, a side street (a “close”) off the Royal Mile.

In the TV episode Claire walks up the steps to Jamie’s Print shop.

The Palace of Holyroodhouse, at the lower end of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, is where Claire and Jamie meet with Bonnie Prince Charlie in the series. The British Royal family stays in this palace when visiting Edinburgh. If they are not in residence, it is open for tours. I saw the outside, but did not have time for a tour.

There are more Outlander filming sites that I did not have time to see, and/or that were too far away. People always ask me if we got to see the stone circle at Craigh na Dun, near Inverness, that are the time travel portal. The location used for filming is on someone’s private property, and the stones used for filming were made out of foam painted to look like stone. There are other actual stone circles in Scotland, but they were all too far away. We did not see any standing stones on this trip.

I tried to check my facts and information about the locations I saw, but it is possible I got something wrong or read information on another site that was not correct.

It was very exciting to see so many Outlander related locations, which are also cool places in their own right. I am going to have to watch some Outlander episodes again now that I have seen the actual places where filming happened.

Watch for two more blog posts about our Scotland trip. The next one will be about time in Edinburgh, and lastly about the end of the trip in London and getting back home. I posted about the beginning of the trip in Glasgow earlier, you can read that here.