Brochel Castle stands on a conglomerate stack about fifteen metres above the shore, its walls built into two levels of the rock: a sentry box cut from the stone, a courtyard, a kitchen and stair tower, and the foundations of a three-storey tower, all following the pinnacle rather than levelling it. It was probably raised in the fifteenth or sixteenth century by Calum Garbh, youngest son of the ninth MacLeod chief of Lewis, and it remained the chief residence of the Raasay MacLeods until the seventeenth. James Boswell, who came in 1773, noted "an opening in the wall from which hot water or stones could be thrown upon an invader." You see it now from outside the fence; the ruin is dangerous and entry is prohibited.
This is the north end of Raasay, seven miles up a single-track road from the ferry. For a long time the public road stopped here. What continues is Calum's Road: nearly two miles of narrow, winding tarmac with twenty passing places, built by hand by Calum MacLeod after the council refused residents' requests for a motor road. It ran from Brochel to Arnish, where he lived with Lexie MacLeod, and Inverness County Council surveyed, adopted and tarmacked it in 1982.
Brochel itself has no shop and no petrol, and facilities generally are limited. Arrive fuelled — there is no filling station anywhere on Raasay — and bring a packed lunch.
The walking is the reason to come. Screapadal begins just before Brochel: three and a half miles on clear tracks that drop past crofthouse remains and a ravine to a cleared township, with the Applecross hills across the Inner Sound. It was one of fourteen Raasay townships emptied after George Rainy bought the estate in 1843, and the Raasay-born poet Sorley MacLean made the abandoned settlement the subject of his poem "Screapadal." The optional return towards the castle is boggy and unmarked; the there-and-back is the safer line.
From the road's end at Arnish, Calum's Path runs another three and a half miles through native birchwood, past a lochan and outcrops of Lewisian gneiss, with Skye in view. A tidal causeway leads to the island of Fladda, slippery and passable only at low tide. No bus reaches either start, and no public transport reaches this part of the island at all.
For food you drive south. Raasay House at Clachan uses local produce including wild Raasay venison, langoustines from the Sound of Raasay, Skye scallops and vegetables from its own walled garden; dogs are allowed in the bar, where the restaurant menu is also served, and in summer evening booking is essential. Near the ferry, the Isle of Raasay Distillery — the island's first legal distillery, making whisky and gin since 2017 — has a restaurant and tasting bar looking west to the Cuillin. The community-owned stores at Inverarish keep Raasay venison, Dexter beef, honey and bread from island bakers, alongside a Post Office. The restored walled garden behind Raasay House has an honesty stall for seasonal veg, picnic tables in the orchard and toilets.
Getting here means the CalMac ferry from Sconser on Skye, a twenty-five-minute turn-up-and-go crossing; the nearest railhead is Kyle of Lochalsh, then road to Sconser.
Back at Brochel the settlement is mostly grazing ground and scattered stone: croft structures, a clearance cairn, and a modernised house thought once to have been the school. There are no on-site visitor facilities. You bring your lunch, walk, and drive back down for supper.