Castle Toward

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Castle Toward

Castle Toward ( Scottish Gaelic : Caisteal an Toll Àird ) is a country house on the southern tip of the Cowal Peninsula above Rothesay Bay in the Scottish administrative unit Argyll and Bute .

The house built for the merchant Kirkman Finlay from Glasgow in 1820 replaced the former, medieval Toward Castle , which was formerly the headquarters of the Lamont clan . At the beginning of the 20th century Castle Toward was extensively expanded and during World War II it was given the code name HMS Brontosaurus . After the war it was sold to the Glasgow Corporation and served as an experiential education center until its closure in 2009. After a failed sale to the community ( community buyout ), the Castle Toward property was sold by the administration to private individuals in 2016.

history

Toward Castle

Toward Castle ruins

The original Toward Castle dates back to the 15th century and belonged to Clan Lamont until 1809. The castle was expanded in the 17th century, but abandoned in 1646 after an attack by Clan Campbell . The ruins of the old castle are about 500 meters southeast of today's Castle Toward. Toward Castle is a Scheduled Monument .

Castle Toward

Today's Castle Toward was built in 1820 for Kirkman Finlay (1773-1842), the former Lord Provost of Glasgow, and his family as a country residence. Finlay bought the Achavoulin property and renamed it Toward in 1818. The country house was designed by the architect David Hamiliton and built in a crenellated , neo-Gothic style. Edward La Trobe Bateman was commissioned to design the garden in the 1880s.

From Castle Toward, the second son of Alexander Struthers Finlay , Alexander Kirkman Finlay , emigrated to the then British colony of Victoria and married the daughter of the then Governor of New South Wales , Hercules Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead . The wedding of Nora Robinson and Alexander Kirkman Finlay at St James' Church, Sydney in 1878 attracted enormous attention in the colony and was widely reported in the press.

The country house later belonged to Major Andrew Coasts of Paisley , who had Italian stucco added to the public spaces in 1920 . In the course of the 1920s, the architect Francis William Deas restored and expanded the entire building and also planned the park in its current appearance. The property includes the ruins of the ancient Toward Castle, the Chinese ponds, wooded areas, an entrance to the sea and the view over the Firth of Clyde .

HMS Brontosaurus

During the Second World War, the country house was requisitioned as a Combined Operations Center (COC No. 2, Coordination Center for Allied Forces) and was given the code name HMS Brontosaurus in 1942 . It was a training center for amphibious landings such as those conducted during Operation Neptune and on other occasions. Officers and men were instructed in the use of various landing craft on the nearby beaches. During this time both Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten visited HMS Brontosaurus . In 1946 the training center was closed.

Adventure education center

In 1948 the Glasgow Corporation bought the country house and 91 acres of open forest. The building served as a sanatorium for children and a boarding school for children from difficult family backgrounds. It later became a boarding school for all Glasgow elementary school students and served as an experiential center for children from Glasgow and Renfrewshire for 50 years . When the Local Government Areas in Scotland were remodeled in 1996, ownership of the facility passed to the Argyll and Bute administration and such centers were threatened with closure. Peter Wilson , then director of the center, founded a company called Actual Reality to operate this center and another in Ardentinny . Activities offered by Acutal Reality included a rope climbing garden , kayaking, orienteering, and hiking through canyons and up hills. The grounds of the property served as the setting for the BBC children's game series Raven with actor James Mackenzie through the 70th episode in early 2008. The house was also used as a boarding school for courses in music and art for young people. The Glasgow Schools Symphony Orchestra and the West of Scotland School's Concert Band were regular visitors. Since 1971, Historic Scotland has listed the building as a Category B Historic Building, and in 2007 the park was added to Scotland's National Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes .

sale

On November 13, 2009, the administration of Argyll and Bute on instructions from the Strathclyde Fire Department temporarily closed the country house because it was no longer considered suitable for its purpose. This was followed by several attempts by the administration to sell the property, but all of them met with local resistance. Former Castle Toward resident composer John Maxwell Geddes wrote a Postlude of Strings in protest of the plans for the sale. The administration nevertheless put Castle Toward up for sale in 2010 and in response the South Cowal Community Development Company (SCCDC) was formed to investigate a takeover of the country house by the community. But their initial bid was rejected by the Scottish government in 2011. An agreement was reached with a provider of holiday homes, who withdrew from the purchase of the property in 2013 and thus forced the administration to offer Castle Toward for sale again. The SCCDC made a second bid to take over the house, which was accepted by the Scottish government in November 2013. But in December 2014, the administration turned down the SCCDC's offer to buy, objecting that the price of £ 865,000 was below market value, and instead offered to support the SCCDC with a loan. In January 2015, the SCCDC rejected the administration's loan offer, noting that securing the purchase before the January 31 deadline would now have "very little chance of realization". By January 26, 5,600 people had signed an online petition asking the administration to revise their decision. The management sold the country house in June 2016 for £ 1.51mn to Denice Purdie and Keith Punler of Kaptial Assets who planned to build homes, apartments, a wedding venue and other business on the property.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Toward Castle . Darkisle.com. July 20, 1999. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c d Garden and Designed Landscape - entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  3. ↑ Scheduled Monument - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  4. ↑ a b Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  5. ↑ Family Notices. . Sydney Morning Herald. S. August 1, 1878. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  6. ↑ Mr. and Mrs. Finlay . Australian Town and Country Journal. S. 17 August 17, 1878. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  7. ^ Combined Training Center - Castle Toward . Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  8. ^ A b Castle Toward Sell Off . Dunoon Observer. October 10, 2003. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  9. ^ Raven (2002-) . IMDB. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  10. ^ A b Castle Toward Sell Off Threat . Dunoon Observer. December 30th, 2009. Archived from the original on September 23rd, 2015. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 2, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dunoon-observer.com
  11. ↑ a b 5,600 sign petition to save Argyll's Castle Toward . The Scotsman. January 26th. Retrieved May 2, 201.
  12. ^ Community Bid Rejected . Dunoon Observer. September 16, 2011. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dunoon-observer.com
  13. ^ Castle Toward For Sale - Again . Dunoon Observer. June 29, 2013. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dunoon-observer.com
  14. ^ Castle Toward - Community Purchase One Step Closer . Dunoon Observer. November 27, 2013. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dunoon-observer.com
  15. ^ Castle Toward . Argyll and Bute Council. December 22, 2014. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  16. ^ "NO" to £ 1 million pound loan . SCCDC. January 12, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  17. ↑ Castle at center of community buyout controversy is sold to developer for just £ 1.5m . The National. June 27, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2017.

Web links

Commons : Castle Toward  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 55 ° 52 ′ 10.4 "  N , 5 ° 0 ′ 50.4"  W.