Publication Account
Date 1992
Event ID 1082662
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082662
This 15th-century tower-house stood about 80m NE of Inveraray Castle (No. 184), and 60m from the W bank of the River Aray. Small-scale excavations in 1966 identified the robbed foundations of the tower, which was demolished about 1774, and the site is now marked by three concrete pillars (en.1). The tower stood at the edge of a terrace 10m above the river, and the subsidence of 'the bancke' was among the causes suggested in 1744 for its ruinous state (en.2).
The original rectangular tower, said to have been erected in the 1450s by the builder of Kilchurn Castle, was converted to an L-plan and otherwise modified, probably in the late 16th century, and at about the same period an elongated SW range was added. Further to the sw, on the site of the present NE terrace, stables had been built, probably some time before 1720-2 when they were remodelled and a matching L-plan domestic block added to the designs of Alexander McGill, 30m apart and flanking the approach to a forecourt 58m long. These pavilions remained in regular use by the 3rd Duke of Argyll until 1761, but the whole complex was swept away in the early 1770s. However, some parts of it are recorded in plans of about 1722 and in drawings by Paul and Thomas Sandby and other artists (en.3*).
RCAHMS 1992
[A full architectural description and historical note is provided in RCAHMS 1992, 286-289)
