Dunoon

Interesting features of the town are the Benmore Botanical Gardens, now open to the public, but formerly a private garden for the Younger family. Toward Castle, formerly owned by the Lamont family is not far from the town. Dunoon pier is over one hundred years old and still receives a connecting ferry with Gourock.

Dunoon Grammar School is over three hundred and fifty years old and has many well known former pupils, including the Labour Party politicians, John Smith, George Robertson (later head of NATO) and Brian Wilson[?]. The actor Sylvester McCoy was also a pupil.

Dunoon was home of the American Naval Base in Scotland from the early 1960s for around thirty years, harbouring the Polaris[?] Nuclear fleet. The Americans left in 1991.

The annual Cowal Highland Games are a highlight and attract many hundreds of contestants from over the world and many thousands of spectators.