Glengarnock Castle
| Glengarnock Castle | |
|---|---|
 The entrance to Glengarnock Castle |
|
| Creation time : | 15th or 16th century |
| Castle type : | Spurburg |
| Conservation status: | ruin |
| Standing position : | Scottish nobility |
| Construction: | Quarry stone |
| Place: | Kilbirnie |
| Geographical location | 55 ° 46 '47.9 " N , 4 ° 41' 44.4" W |
| Height: | 48 m ASL |
Glengarnock Castle is a ruined castle on a remote, rocky headland above the River Garnock , about 2 miles north of the town of Kilbirnie in the Scottish administrative division of North Ayrshire . There is no record of when or by whom the castle was built, but the builders are believed to have come from the Cunningham (or Cunninghame) clan or from the Riddels who preceded them. The barony Glengarnock is one of the three baronies that make up the municipality of Kilbirnie. The Garnock flows through the village of the same name about 4 km south, but the name "Glen Garnock" exactly applies to the ravine at the castle ruins.
The ruins were stabilized in 1841 at the instigation of William Cochran Patrick of Ladyland after they were partially collapsed in a storm in 1839. Dobie reports that “(...) foundations where they were washed away were secured, lost parts of the walls were removed and completely restored, carefully piling the whole thing together with mortar. The interior has been cleaned of debris and soil that had accumulated over the 100 years since the facility was abandoned and decayed. ”The facility continues to deteriorate, but without these safeguards, little would be preserved today.
history
In the 12th and 13th centuries, the De Morville family , Hereditary Great Constables of Scotland, administered the lands for the king. A castle might have been built by them on this spot, a fitting place given the abbey they founded in Kilwinning . The Baronate Glengarnock then passed to the Riddels and the Cunninghames. Mary Queen of Scots visited the castle in 1563. Sir James Cunningham had the Glengarnock Aisle built in Kilbirnie Auld Kirk in 1597 . The Cunninghames held the castle until the early 17th century; it was abandoned in the 18th century. The Honorable Patrick Lindsay of Kilbirnie Castle bought Glengarnock Castle and Estate in 1677 from Richard Cunninghame , the last of the Cunninghames of Glengarnock. In 1707 both baronates, that of Glengarnock and that of Kilbirnie, were united in the Baronate of Kilbirnie, with Kilbirnie Castle becoming the headquarters.
William Dobie reports that Sir James Cunningham transferred the "lands of Glengarnock" to his creditors and went to Ireland , where he cultivated 4800 hectares of land given to him by King James VI. had refused. The property was sold by the creditors to the Cunningham of Robertland Castle , but his son could not hold the lands; Adam Watt , employee of the Signet , acquired it and sold it in 1630 to the husband of the heiress of Kilbirnie Castle, the honorable Patrick Lindsay .
description
The castle is an example of a donjon with an attached courtyard and dates from between 1400 and 1542; There are numerous younger buildings in the courtyard. In the New Statistical Account of Scotland of 1845 it is described as follows:
“The ruins of Glengarnock Castle stand on a protruding ridge or hill above the Garnock, about 3 km north of Kilbirnie. This roaring watercourse lines two sides of the hill, and the ravine through which it flows is a full 24 meters deep; according to the old rules of the art of war, the situation must have combined security and easy defensibility. The only access to the castle is from the northeast, where the range of hills on which it lies connects with an adjacent field. At a distance of about 30 meters, a depression in the ground shows where a dry moat used to run, through which, together with a drawbridge , access was secured. "
In 1956 this moat was still 30 meters long and an average of 4 meters deep and 8 meters wide. In 1964, evidence of a small building between the moat and the castle was found, possibly a farmhouse.
“Until recently, the floor plan of this old fortress was easy to see and part of the outer walls is still almost at its original height. Their appearance when they were whole can still be imagined without difficulty. According to the records and measurements made a few years ago, the castle can generally be described as consisting of a four-sided tower and lower buildings rising up on its east side. The entrance was on the east side of the latter. This facade is 14 meters long and about 7.3 meters high. A courtyard or passage, 18 meters long, lies between the entrance and the tower. There was a series of two-story apartment buildings on either side of it. The tower is 13.7 meters long and 10 meters wide and its height was more than 12 meters. "
“Its upper floor, which is the only floor still accessible, consisted of a knight's hall that filled the entire space between the walls and a built-in ceiling that was 6 meters high. Windows were both in the walls facing the courtyard and in the outer walls. From one of the windows you can see the rough chasm through which the Garnock murmurs, and from two narrow openings on the east side the eye can still sweep over the beautiful and extensive district that bears the name of the old lords of the castle. A narrow spiral staircase led from the knight's hall to the upper part of the building, which was surrounded by a parapet wall. In the ruins there are neither loopholes nor cannon stands to be found, as was common in similar old buildings. Perhaps the location of the castle itself was so secure that the usual facilities to ward off an attack could be dispensed with. The uniformity of the architectural style of all fortified country houses built before the discovery of gunpowder makes it difficult to determine their exact construction time. Few, however, confronted with such remnants of feudal architecture would hesitate to give the ruins of this fortress an age as high as that of any other remains of the wall in the west of Scotland. "
In the 1890s, John Smith wrote that a considerable Køkkenmødding had built up under the castle over the years ; it consisted largely of ashes from burning the typical, local, poor quality coal, along with broken fragments of tiles and patterned glass with broken and roughened edges.
Garrat's Linn is located directly below the castle ruins in Garnock . "Linn" is the Scottish expression for a pool in a river.
Glengarnock Castle is a Scheduled Monument .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Entry on Glengarnock Castle in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
- ^ Thorbjørn Campbell (2003). Ayrshire. A Historical Guide . Birlinn, Edinburgh 2003. ISBN 1-84158-267-0 . P. 182.
- ^ William Dobie: Glengarnock Castle in The Ayrshire Wreath . James Mackie, Kilmarnock 1855. p. 200.
- ^ Kilwinning Past & Present . Kilwinning & District Preservation Society, Kilwinning 1990. Section 2.1.
- ↑ Glengarnock Castle . Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
- ^ James D. Dobie, JS Dobie (Editor) (1876). Cunninghame, Topographized by Timothy Pont 1604-1608, with continuations and illustrative notices . John Tweed, Glasgow 1876. p. 231.
- ^ William Dobie: Glengarnock Castle in The Ayrshire Wreath . James Mackie, Kilmarnock 1855. p. 202.
- ^ William Dobie: Glengarnock Castle in The Ayrshire Wreath . James Mackie, Kilmarnock 1855. p. 203.
- ^ T. MacGibbon, D. Ross: The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries . 5 volumes. Edinburgh 1887-1892. P. 293.
- ^ T. MacGibbon, D. Ross: The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries . 5 volumes. Edinburgh 1887-1892. P. 294.
- ^ A b c The New Statistical Account of Scotland: Ayr, Bute . W. Blackwood and Sons. 1845. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
- ↑ James Paterson: History of the County of Ayr . Volume II (1852). P. 113.
- ^ John Smith: Prehistoric Man in Ayrshire . Elliot Stock, 1895. p. 65.
- ^ Robert Aitken: Map of the Parish of Kilbirnie . 1827.
- ^ Dictionary of Scots Language . Scottish Language Dictionaries. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
- ↑ Scheduled Monument - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
