Kilbirnie Place

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Kilbirnie Place from the north

Kilbirnie Place is the ruin of a country house from the 16th century west of Kilbirnie on the lower slopes of Glengarnock Hills in the Scottish administration unit North Ayrshire . Other names were Place of Kilbirnie , Kilbirnie House or simply The Place .

The site is near a stream and a small but deep ravine . The remains of the old keep of Kilbirnie Castle have been integrated into the country house . Both are not on the grounds of the Kilbirnie Place Golf Club, which was laid out in 1925 on the site of the former pleasure gardens .

history

The name "Kilbirnie" comes from the Scottish Gaelic and means "Church of Saint Brendan " in German . The parish was divided into three baronates : Kilbirnie, Ladyland and Glengarnock . The Baronate Kilbirnie was the largest in the parish with 2200 hectares of land and the most fertile with 1200 hectares of arable land (pasture and forest).

The name “Place” in Scottish refers to a landowner's country house and means the same as the name “Palace” in English, even if this English word acquired its current meaning much later. While Kilbirnie Castle was commissioned by Malcolm Crawfurd and his wife Marjory, b. Barclay , the country house dates from 1627 and is a much more comfortable house with no defensive facilities. The entrance to the new "wing" has a very unusual, clearly protruding vestibule on the south facade.

The honorable Patrick Lindsay bought Glengarnock Castle and Estate in 1677 from Richard Cuninghame , the last baron of Glengarnock. In 1707 both baronates were united under that of Kilbirnie and the country house there was the main seat of the baron.

description

The “wing” was added to the old donjon in 1627 at right angles. The masonry consists of quarry stone, which is clad with sandstone - ashlar . The knight's hall of the old donjon was connected to a staircase in the new extension through a door. The country house was a fine example of 17th century architecture. At the level of the knight's hall, the country house had protruding tourelles and these contained wall cupboards . The front door sat in an unusually low vestibule and a narrow back door in the north facade led to the courtyard. There were two basements with a corridor between them that also led to the main staircase. The knight's hall in the old tower may have served as a dining room and the large room in the country house was used as a salon.

The southernmost Tourelle and a large part of the country house collapsed sometime between 1956 and 1964. Historic Scotland has listed the ruin as a Category B Historic Building.

fire

Lady Jean Lindsay as Countess of Eglinton

On the morning of May 1, 1757, the buildings were destroyed by a fire that broke out during construction work. They were never rebuilt. A servant walking towards the stables saw smoke rising from the roof and sounded the alarm. The 19th Earl of Crawfurd, his underage daughter Jean (later Countess of Eglinton ) and the house staff had little time to escape the raging flames. The family first moved to the manse of the Baronate Kilbirnie and later settled in Bourtreehill House near Irvine . Lady Crawfurd was the eldest daughter and heir to Robert Hamilton of Bourtreehill.

The remains of the Great Avenue

It is said that a lady of the house, before going to bed, poured melted fat from the base of a large candlestick into the grate on one of the lower floors of the house. The resulting flames ignited the chimney that had not been swept and jumped onto the house through a window in the attic of the new country house, which had been left open by workers. The carpenters had taken the keys with them and so it was not possible to come to the fire to fight it. Many people rushed to help, but could not do anything. Until the earl's death in 1781, the real story was carefully hidden and supernatural forces were held responsible for the fire.

Some of the buildings were preserved as hunting lodges for a while .

Pleasure gardens

Ruins of the fenced garden

The driveway to the building from the south was a long, straight avenue, 18 meters wide and bordered by high walls that once enclosed large gardens. The section down to Causewayfoot was walled and the section to the end in Fudstone (now defunct ) was only made of trees. The remains of the Große Allee can still be seen today. A large, enclosed garden led in two sections from the country house down to the ravine. It hasn't existed for a long time, but on the Ordnance Survey maps it is marked with a staircase between the two sections and a small building on the north wall. Paterson notes that the vast pleasure gardens have been "plowed up". In the gardens there were once flowers and bushes, potatoes , turnips and orchards. The enclosed garden with apple trees is still shown in 1856, only one of which has survived to this day.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kilbirnie Place Golf Club website. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
  2. ^ Anthony David Mills: Oxford dictionary of British place names . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003. ISBN 978-0-19-852758-9 .
  3. ↑ James Paterson: History of the Counties of Ayrs and Wigton . Volume IV: '' Cuninghame ''. Part 1 & 2. James Stillie, Edinburgh 1866. p. 282.
  4. ↑ Alexander Warrack: Chambers Scots Dictionary . W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh 1992.
  5. ^ Thorbjørn Campbell: Ayrshire. A Historical Guide . Birlinn, Edinburgh 2003. ISBN 1-84158-267-0 . P. 198.
  6. ^ Charles McKean: The Scottish Chateau . Sutton Publishing, 2001. ISBN 0-7509-2323-7 . P. 53.
  7. ^ Thorbjørn Campbell: Ayrshire. A Historical Guide . Birlinn, Edinburgh 2003. ISBN 1-84158-267-0 . P. 199.
  8. ↑ James D. Dobie, JS Dobie (editor): Cunninghame, Topographized by Timothy Pont 1604-1608, with continuations and illustrative notices . John Tweed, Glasgow 1876. p. 231.
  9. ↑ a b Kilbirnie House . In: British Listed Buildings . Retrieved October 6, 2017.
  10. ^ A b T. MacGibbon, D. Ross: The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries . Volume 1. David Douglas, Edinburgh 1887-1892. P. 391.
  11. ^ Mike Salter: The Castles of South-West Scotland . Folly, Malvern 2006. ISBN 1-871731-70-4 . P. 46.
  12. ↑ Kilbirnie House . In: Canmore . Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
  13. ^ T. MacGibbon, D. Ross: The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries . Volume 1. David Douglas, Edinburgh 1887-1892. P. 395.
  14. ↑ James Paterson: History of the Counties of Ayrs and Wigton . Volume IV: Cuninghame . Parts 1 & 2. James Stillie, Edinburgh 1866. pp. 286-287.
  15. ^ Martin Coventry: Castles of the Clans. Goblinshead, Musselburgh 2010. ISBN 1-899874-36-4 . P. 129.
  16. ↑ a b James D. Dobie, JS Dobie (editor): Cunninghame, Topographized by Timothy Pont 1604-1608, with continuations and illustrative notices . John Tweed, Glasgow 1876. p. 233.
  17. ↑ James Paterson: History of the Counties of Ayrs and Wigton . Volume IV: Cuninghame . Parts 1 & 2. James Stillie, Edinburgh 1866. pp. 287-288.
  18. ^ Heraldry1: The Crawfurds of Kilbirnie . Tripod. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
  19. ^ T. MacGibbon, D. Ross: The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries . Volume 1. David Douglas, Edinburgh 1887-1892. P. 390.
  20. ^ Robert Close, Robert (1992). Ayrshire and Arran: An Illustrated Architectural Guide . Roy Inc Arch Scot., 1992. ISBN 1873190-06-9 . P. 94.
  21. ↑ James Paterson: History of the Counties of Ayrs and Wigton . Volume IV: Cuninghame . Part 1 & 2. James Stillie, Edinburgh 1866. p. 287.
  22. ^ Ordnance Survey: Ayr Sheet VII.08 (Kilbirnie). Survey date: date 1856. Publication: 1858 . National Library of Scotland. Retrieved October 6, 2017.

Web links

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

Coordinates: 55 ° 45 ′ 2.1 "  N , 4 ° 42 ′ 16.6"  W.