Craignethan Castle became a popular place to visit. In notes of his 1833 tour, Orville Dewey recorded that "We left Tillietudlem, three miles from Lanark, on the right, two miles from the road, and out of sight. I am told an old woman near there was very much vexed by the inquiries of rambling visitors, after the publication of Old Mortality. She could not conceive what sent all these people, all at once, asking about Tillietudlem." Scott's son-in-law John Gibson Lockhart took the artist J. M. W. Turner to Craignethan in September 1834, approaching it from the north-east via the Nethan Gorge. The "Scottish Tourist" of 1836 also describes the approach from the Nethan Gorge to the castle "standing upon a vast rock overhanging the Nethan", adding that from its proximity to Lanark, Bothwell Bridge and Drumclog, "there is no doubt that it is the prototype of the "Castle of Tillietudlem"". In their 1836 Gazetteer of Scotland entry on the parish of Lesmahagow, Robert and William Chambers described the "noble ruin" of Craignethan Castle, "which is confessedly the prototype of the Tillietudlem of the author of Waverley", before concluding that, on the whole, the area "is well deserving of a visit from the man of science, and equally from the man of taste."