For several centuries the story of Invergarry was the story of the MacDonell family. They were the lairds here when, after raids by the Mackenzies in 1602, they fortified the Rock of the Raven, a rocky outcrop on the west bank of Loch Oich. The result was an imposing five storey L-plan tower house. It first saw action when Cromwell’s troops burned it down in 1654. Repaired, it was held for James VII from 1688 until its surrender to William and Mary in 1692. It was then held by the Jacobites during the 1715 uprising, but retaken for the government in 1716. And during the 1745 uprising it was again held by Jacobites and visited twice by Bonnie Prince Charlie. In the aftermath of Culloden it was sacked and partially blown up by ‘Butcher’ Cumberland as part of the subsequent suppression of the Highlands. In the late 1700s the MacDonells worked hard to exploit their estates to their maximum. They stripped much of the area of its forests. During the 1780s they also cleared their land of much of its population, on the basis that there was more money to be made by grazing sheep. The Ellice family built the imposing Invergarry House a little to the north of the ruins of Invergarry Castle. The last of the Ellices, Edward, died in 1934 and in 1960 Invergarry House became the Glengarry Castle Hotel.