Publication Account
Date 1986
Event ID 1017409
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017409
Seen and seeing for miles around, Castle of Park stands high on a tree-skirted platform above the Water of Luce, the very model of a late 16th century Galloway laird's house. Now bereft of its 18th century wings, but carefully restored to pristine condition, it rises abruptly from this plateau to four full storeys and a garret.
The rooms in the main block are served by a stair in the projecting turret, giving it an overall L-plan form. Steeply pitched roofs over the main block and wing are mdependently constructed with crowstepped gables. There is no parapet, and corbelling, so beloved of tower-house builders, is restricted to a minor turret in the re-entrant angle. The lateral chimney-stack in the east side-wall serves a large hall fireplace, while the chunky stack above the north gable is related to a basement kitchen. Castle of Park is of an age when mtegrated service facilities were the norm.
The doorway is in the re-entrant angle, protected by the usual shot-hole. An inscribed panel above the entrance helpfully records that building work was begun on 1 March 1590 by Thomas Hay of Park and Janet McDowall, his wife. Thomas (d. 1628) was son of the last abbot ofGlenluce Abbey (no. 72) and is reputed to have plundered the abbey for building materials. The Hays, evidently descended from a minor branch of the Earls of Errol, held the lands of Park from the 16th century down to modem times. In 1870 as reported that 'about forty years ago, everything portable was removed to Dunragit', another Hay residence.
The tower received later additions, which have been removed, but it remained virtually unaltered itself The compact service arrangements on the ground floor consist of vaulted cellars and kitchen laid out en suite with linking corridor.
On the first floor, an indent in the wall immediately to the right of the entrance shows the likely position of a wooden screen at the 'lower' end of the great hall. At the other end, small chambers have been contrived on each side of the large intrusive kitchen stack; a similar pattern is repeated on the floors above. The main rooms on the second floor are paired with matching garderobes in the side-wall. The roof structure is basically original.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Dumfries and Galloway’, (1986).
