Bernera Barracks is located in Glenelg in the West Highlands of Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. The barracks were constructed between 1717 and 1723 as part of a campaign by the British government to subdue the local population which had risen up in arms in the Jacobite Rising of 1715

Jacobite Rising of 1715

The Jacobite rising of 1715, often referred to as The 'Fifteen, was the attempt by James Francis Edward Stuart to regain the British throne for the exiled House of Stuart.-Background:...

, and which would do so again in 1745. The barracks were designed by Andrews Jelfe and John Lambertus Romer

John Lambertus Romer

John Lambertus Romer was a British military engineer. He was the son of Wolfgang William Romer, a Dutch engineer who came to England with William of Orange in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688....

 of the Board of Ordnance

Board of Ordnance

The Board of Ordnance was a British government body responsible for the supply of armaments and munitions to the Royal Navy and British Army. It was also responsible for providing artillery trains for armies and maintaining coastal fortresses and, later, management of the artillery and engineer...

, or possibly their predecessor James Smith

James Smith (architect)

James Smith was a Scottish architect, who pioneered the Palladian style in Scotland. He was described by Colen Campbell, in his Vitruvius Britannicus , as "the most experienced architect of that kingdom".-Biography:...

, and built by Sir Patrick Strachan. Some of the stone used in the construction was taken from a nearby broch

Broch

A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure of a type found only in Scotland. Brochs include some of the most sophisticated examples of drystone architecture ever created, and belong to the classification "complex Atlantic Roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s....

. The Government troops who were garrisoned here during the Jacobite uprisings were also intended to control the crossing to Skye.

The barracks (and indeed the broch) are now in ruins, a state which they appear to have entered by the close of the eighteenth century, shortly after the withdrawal of troops in 1797. The barracks is protected as a category A listed building, and as a scheduled monument.