Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Field Visit
Date February 1985
Event ID 1156533
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1156533
Greenan Castle NS 3117 1932 NS31NW 1
Greenan Castle is situated on a coastal promontory 180m of Greenan farmsteading and comprises a tower-house standing within the inner defences of an earlier earthwork castle (see NS31NW 27). A ditch (23m broad and 2m deep) cuts off an area at the head of the promontory measuring 28m by 16m, whilst on the S a bailey measuring 70m by 26m is protected by an outer ditch (13.7m broad and 3m deep). The tower is oblong on plan (10.05m by 8.4m overall), three storeys and a garret in height, and has a vaulted basement, crow-stepped gables and corbelled angle-rounds. The end-wall, on the NE, rises from a chamfered base-plinth; the entrance is at ground level and the lintel bears the date 1607 and the initials J K (John Kennedy of Baltersan). A mortared rubble wall (12.6m long, 1.3m thick and 3.1 m high), which extends along the crest of the promontory on the SW side, may be part of an earlier building. In the 1190s Roger de Scalebroc held a castle at Greenan, and during the 16th century the estate belonged to the Davidsons; a tower is on record in 1576.
RCAHMS 1985, visited February 1985.
(Grose 1789-91, ii, 198; Retours, Ayr, No. 18; MacGibbon and Ross 1896-7, iii, 383-4; Macfarlane 1906-8, ii, 9; Bryden 1910; Dillon 1954, 72; Tranter 1970, v, 207; Barrow 1980, 46, 58-9; Stell 1985b, 22.)
