As a result, the entire population, which counted 443 people in 1795, were cleared from the island by 1828, only for new tenants to be brought in from Skye and Muck to service the sheep farm.
[2] Lachlan Maclean constructed Kinloch House, on a site to the north-east of the present castle, but was forced to give up the lease in the late 1830s.
He passed the estate to his son, Viscount Cranborne (1821–1865), on whose death it was inherited by his brother, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, later 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The first mausoleum, decorated with ceramic tiles, was compared to a public toilet, and Bullough had it demolished, replacing it with the Doric temple which stands today.
[4] During the Boer War, Bullough lent his yacht Rhouma as a hospital ship, bringing wounded soldiers back to Kinloch Castle.
[4] Kinloch Castle was occupied by Bullough and his friends during the shooting season each year, but they visited less frequently after the First World War, and the estate was neglected.
[2] After Sir George Bullough's death in 1939, the castle and the island were held by trustees, who sold the estate in 1957, retaining only the family mausoleum.
The initial aim is to reopen the hostel accommodation in order to generate income to help to support the castle whilst external funding is sought for more major restoration work.
[13] In June 2022, businessman Jeremy Hosking announced his intention of purchasing the castle subject to planning permission for the restoration of the building and its conversion to visitor accommodation.
[14][15] In March 2023, he withdrew his purchase offer after the Scottish government put the sale on hold because of concerns raised by the Isle of Rum Community Trust.
[17]The report indicated that Kinloch Castle did not represent any significant design or technical values but this was made up for by the fact that it was a monument to a certain type of social lifestyle existing at the time.
Kinloch Castle is of an externally uninspired design with an unusual though not unserviceable plan, built by clearly competent but yet undistinguished architects who may well have been in some respects "prisoners" of their client’s strong will to the detriment of the overall conception......In terms of general construction technology, Kinloch offered no advance on existing practice.The social-political monument that it does represent is described as "[A]n extreme example – an "exemplar" even - of the worst kind of highland landlordism" as well as "representative of a social phenomenon for which his (Bullough's) period was noted: third-generation new wealth, opulent lifestyle, sporting interests embracing horseracing, and belonging to the "smart" set (who saw genial but luxuriously-living Edward, Prince of Wales as their exemplar) rather than subscribing to Victorian morality" Jim Crumley, a Scottish nature writer, described Kinloch Castle as "a monument to… colossal wealth and ego and acquisitive greed… It is a building without a redeeming feature.. a loathsome edifice.