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Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016571
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016571
Castle Campbell is tucked away at the head of Dollar Glen and occupies the top of a promontory overlooking the confluence of the Bums of Sorrow and Care. From the 15th to the 17th century it served as the principal lowland seat of the Earls of Argyll; prior to 1490 it was known as Castle Glume, but in that year Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, secured an act of Parliament changing its official name to Castle Campbell.
The present buildings date from the later 15th to the 17th century, but charter evidence suggests that there was an earlier castle on the site, and it is possible that the mound on which the tower stands is the remains of a motte and bailey. Like so many castles of the later middle ages, Castle Campbell developed from a relatively simple tower-house to a more complex design. The earliest section of the present castle is a well-preserved oblong tower-house dating to the third quarter of the 15th century. It is offour principal storeys plus a gan-et, and rises within massive walls to an overhanging parapet. The internal arrangements are in keeping with most tower-houses and there is a hall occupying the first floor.
During the later 15th or early 16th century the residential accommodation was augmented by the construction of a south range, which consists of a series of vaulted cellars under a fine first-floor hall (cf Newark Castle, no. 26). In the late 16th or early 17th century a block was added on the east, linking the tower to the south range. An unusual feature of the east range is a double arched arcade, or loggia; this was a detail borrowed from the contemporary continental Renaissance style and was more suited to the sunny south than to the windy climate of Scotland. At about the same time that the east range was added, the courtyard was enclosed within a curtain wall and was provided with a gateway with a covered pend. To the south of the castle, and entered through a pend running beneath the south range, there is a small walled garden.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Clyde Estuary and Central Region’, (1985).
