Archaeology Notes

Event ID 725239

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/725239

NX16SW 6.00 11048 60936

NX16SW 6.01 11030 60871 Walled Garden

NX16SW 6.02 11242 60786 Castle Kennedy Bridge

NX16SW 6.03 11276 60769 Gate Piers, Gates and Boundary Walls

NX16SW 6.04 11255 60815 The Canal

NX16SW 6.05 10847 59834 Lodge

NX16SW 6.06 11501 60825 Black Stables

NX16SW 6.07 11290 60927 Canal Cottage

NX16SW 6.08 11789 60767 East Lodge

NX16SW 6.09 11330 60740 Garden Cottage

NX16SW 6.10 11238 60902 Kitchen Garden centred on

NX16SW 6.11 10567 61507 White Loch Boathouse

NX16SW 6.12 11268 61017 Bowling Pavilion

NX16SW 38 10133 60336 Castle Kennedy, Church Lodge

See also NX16SW 27.00 - 27.11 for neighbouring Lochinch Castle Estate.

(NX 1105 6093) Castle Kennedy (NR) (Remains of)

OS 6" map (1957)

A good example of a symmetrically-planned 17th century mansion of rough rubble to which wings have been added on the north and west. It was built in 1607 and must have supplanted an older keep, mentioned in 1482. The site of the castle was originally an island in Loch Inch, but is now a neck of land.

Castle Kennedy was accidentally destroyed by fire in 1716 and was not restored.

RCAHMS 1912

As described, planned and illustrated by the Commission.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 27 February 1968

This early 17th-century mansion stands in landscaped gardens on a ridge between the White and Black Lochs. The existing building evidently represents only a fragment of what had been conceived as a much more extensive house.

It is symmetrical on plan, consisting of an oblong, four-storeyed main block flanked by projecting towers on the E with smaller turrets in the two W re-entrants; the original intention was to extend the main block considerably further westwards. The service rooms on the ground floor were vaulted, and a passage (opening from an entrance-doorway at the S side of the E wall) extended the length of the block and communicated with a newel-stair in the SW re-entrant turret. The public rooms were presumably situated within the main block, which had a single large chamber at each level. The wings contained a series of bedchambers and associated closets. In the early 18th century two-storeyed wings were added on the S and W. There is no evidence of an associated enclosure, the walled garden on the S side of the mansion being of 18th-century date.

Building work at Castle Kennedy is on record in 1607. In the mid 17th century the property was acquired by the Hamiltons, Lairds of Bargany, passing in 1677 to the Dalrymples of Stair. After a fire in 1716 the family took up residence at Culhorn (NX 0790 5910), but in the 1720s work commenced on the policies under the direction of William Adam and in consultation with the elder William Boutcher.

(SRO GD 135/Box 33/1, 13; Box 35/4; 139, no.3; 141/Vol.8/57; SRO RHP 4677)

RCAHMS 1987, visited April 1986.