Auchenharvie Castle

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Ruins of Auchenharvie Castle 2007

Auchenharvie Castle is a ruined castle from the 16th century at Torranyard , northeast of Irvine in the Scottish management unit East Ayrshire . Historic Scotland has listed the building as a Category B Historic Building. The name "Auchenharvie" means "hill in a yellow corn field" according to Timothy Pont .

history

The castle

Auchanharvie Castle around 1892

The ruins are still in a highly visible and easily defended position on Auchenharvie Farm near Torranyard . The site was significantly changed by quarrying work. The castle used to be called "Achin-Hervy", "Awthinharve" (Rollie, around 1564), "Auchinbervy" (Moll, 1745), "Achenhay" (1775 and 1807) or "Auchenhowy" (Ainslie, 1821).

Auchenharvie Castle has long been in ruins, as Timothy Pont shows as early as 1604–1608. The castle ruins were too small and the area of ​​the mound too limited for the ruins to be converted into a more comfortable and more comfortable apartment.

The parapet consoles are unusual because they protrude less than usual. This links Auchenharvie Castle with the work on Law Castle and Barr Castle . The castle was built of darker Whinstone with Freestone corners .

A large part of this typical tower castle, which was in ruins by the 1770s at the latest, has been preserved. There are traces of a barrel vault , lateral tourelles , magnificent sandstone decorations , etc. Some very basic maintenance work was carried out on the ruin. Unusual orchid species are said to grow on the mound.

From the pollen records at Bloak Moss , it is known that extensive clearing was carried out in the 5th or 6th centuries. Such a site was of great strategic importance to these early settlers because it protruded like an island over the moors.

The Cunninghames of Auchenharvie

William Aiton's map of Ayrshire from 1811 with "Auchenharvy".

The castle was long in the hands of the Cunninghames; Edward Cunninghame of Auchenharvie was killed in 1526 during a feud with the Montgomery clan . The most famous owner of Auchenharvie Castle was Dr. Robert Cunninghame , who was appointed baronet of Nova Scotia in 1673 and was the personal physician of King Charles II , to which he was appointed shortly after his coronation in Scone in 1651 . He was with the King's army in the September 1651 defeat in Worcester , was imprisoned in the Tower of London and only released after paying a ransom. He was very wealthy and in 1656 bought the Stevenston Barony back from the Earl of Eglinton. He died in 1676 and his son only survived him by two years. Because his daughter could not inherit, the estate in the male line fell to her cousin, Robert Cunninghame .

In January 1678 Robert Cunynghame , pharmacist and druggist in Edinburgh , is noted as the heir of Anne , daughter of Sir Robert Cunynghame of Auchenharvie. She was Robert's cousin, and part of his inheritance was the barony of Stephenston and the lands of Auchenharvie. He also owned lands in Lambroughton and Chapeltoun . He married Anne Purves of Purves Hall in 1669 and had 17 children with her. Despite his inheritance, he later ran into serious economic difficulties.

The house belonged to David Cunninghame, 1st Baronet of Auchinhervie , an absent courtier in England until 1642 . In 1634 he planned to build additional buildings, starting with a garden wall around the old tower. He thought his castle was too small to house his friends during a planned royal visit in 1628 and asked his cousin, David Cunninghame of Robertland , to house his mother so that if friends came, they would also stay in Robertland.

In 1829 Aitken's map showed the castle as the property of Colonel Barns .

The corpse dealers

Auchenharvie Castle 1820

According to local legend, before the Anatomy Act of 1832, in the days of the mortuary traffickers, corpses that were found locally were hidden in the ruins, then brought to Glasgow at night and sold to doctors and medical students at the old university for them to practice autopsies . Another version of this story is that the bodies were collected from the neighboring communities in Darnshaw , a hidden house near Bloak Moss on the old Auchenharvie to Megswell road . The bodies are said to have been sold to university medical students in Glasgow for £ 10 each. The old toll road did not pass the property and there was a toll station with a gate nearby, which raises some doubts about the castle's involvement in the story.

Another local legend mentions the nearby Girgenti House and its tower, which can be seen from afar, as quarters for smugglers.

Auchenharvie House

Milestone of the old toll road in West Balgray

The family had a property called Auchenharvie built in Stevenston and then demolished; whose name lives on in the Auchenharvie Academy . Middleton at Annick Lodge was part of the estate that fell into the hands of the Hamiltons of Bourtreehill House and then to the Earl of Eglinton . Robert Cunninghame was one of the most famous family members at the new location because he was heavily involved in coal mining in the Stevenston Barony.

Lesley Baillie of the Bonnie-Lesley story was a descendant of the Cunninghames of Auchenharvie.

The toll road

The old toll station near Auchenharvie Farm was demolished in the 1990s and replaced by a private residence. The old intersection with the toll road is still there today as a dirt road. A road led across the fields from here across the river through a ford below Megswell Farm . This road led over an ornate bridge below the entrance to Montgreenan . The construction of the road to Lochlibo made this route redundant.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Timothy Pont: Cuninghamia . 1604. Blaeu. 1654.
  2. ^ A b T. MacGibbon, D. Ross: The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries . 5th edition, Edinburgh 1887-1892. P. 228.
  3. ^ Thorbjørn Campbell: Ayrshire. A Historical Guide . Birlinn, Edinburgh 2003. ISBN 1-84158-267-0 . P. 122.
  4. ↑ Oliver Rackham: Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape . JM Dent & Sons, 1976. ISBN 0-460-04183-5 . P. 52.
  5. ↑ a b c d James D. Dobie, JS Dobie (editor): Cunninghame, Topographized by Timothy Pont 1604–1608, with continuations and illustrative notices . John Tweed, Glasgow 1876.
  6. ^ Alec Phillips, et al .: The Auchenharvie Colliery an early history. The Three Towns History Group. Richard Stenlake. ISBN 1-872074-58-8 . P. 4.
  7. ↑ National Archives of Scotland: Cunningham Letters GD237 / 25 / 1-4 . (NAS-OPAC online catalog).
  8. ^ Robert Aitken: The Parish Atlas of Ayrshire - Cunninghame . W. Ballantine, Edinburgh 1829.
  9. ↑ a b Geoff Holder: Scottish Bodysnatchers . The History Press, Port Stroud 2010. ISBN 978-0-7524-5603-4 . P. 54.
  10. ↑ John Straw Horn: The History of Irvine . John Donald, 1985. ISBN 0-85976-140-1 . P. 113.
  11. ↑ Dane Love: Scottish Kirkyards . Robert Hale, London 1989. ISBN 0-7090-3667-1 . P. 148.
  12. ↑ Irene Hughson: The Auchenharvie Colliery - an early history . Stenlake Publishing, Ochiltree 1996. ISBN 1-872074-58-8 . Pp. 5-12.
  13. ^ Archibald Wallace: Stevenston. Past & Present . Archibald Wallace, Stevenston 1902. p. 32.

Web links

Commons : Auchenharvie Castle  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 55 ° 39 ′ 53.9 "  N , 4 ° 36 ′ 15.7"  W.