Culzean Castle before Robert Adam: A sketchy understanding Journal 2020-21REV4... · 2020. 12....

57THE CASTLE STUDIES GROUP JOURNAL NO. 34

Culzean Castle before Robert Adam:A sketchy understandingDerek Alexander (National Trust for Scotland)Culzean Castle is best known as RobertAdam’s cliff-top romantic masterpiece. Theimage of the castle – really the 18th and 19thcentury country house – adorns Scottishbanknotes, postcards and has recently madeit on to the ‘Mayfair’ spot of the Ayrshireversion of Monopoly! The picturesque viewfrom the folly or ruined arch gateway, lookingalong the viaduct approach over the terracedwalled gardens, is well-known. Perhaps lesswell-known is the fact that the old towerhouse is partly encased within the late 18thcentury structure.The understanding of the history of theKennedy family at Culzean, and especially thetransformation of the estate by Robert Adam,is covered in detail in Michael Moss’s bookand in the research work of former NationalTrust for Scotland (NTS) employee, DebbieJackson.¹ The core of the Kennedy family

estate of Culzean, comprising 228 hectares,was given to the NTS in 1945.² The castle stillforms the focal point for the entire countrypark and it is easy to see why - Robert Adam’slate 18th century picturesque creation hascertainly made the most of the dramaticsetting. It was, however, precisely this samelandscape that made it an excellent defensivesite and ideal for the construction of amedieval castle. The headland is defended bycliffs on the north-west and around its north-eastern end, while the south-eastern side wasprotected by a natural hollow. This hollowwas originally deeper than it appears today;it was infilled in the 17th century to create awalled garden and then raised again in the19th century to form the Fountain Court.Perhaps the easiest approach to the site mayhave been from the south-west.

While defended both from the land and thesea, there were still good beaching points forboats at the north-eastern end at Gas HouseBay or at the south-western end at Culzean

Fig. 1. Culzean Castle from north: a drone view showing approximate viewpoints of the threesketches reproduced in Figs 2-4, June 2017 (Copyright National Trust for Scotland).

Culzean Castle before Robert Adam: A sketchy understanding


Harbour, although, due to outlying rockyoutcrops offshore, any approach by boatwould have to have been done carefully. Butperhaps the most important factor in thechoice of the headland for a settlement wasthe presence of two sets of caves at the footof the cliff. These caves are known as theCulzean Coves – the Castle Cave and theStables Cave – and it was these features thatgave their name to the medieval castle above.Before it became Culzean, the site was knownas Coif or Coffe Castle – both of which are OldEnglish versions of the name for ‘cave’. It islikely that the name is of late 7th century dateand is one of a number, including nearbyMaybole and Turnberry, that relate to theNorthumbrian expansion into South-WestScotland.³ It is interesting that archaeologicalinvestigations in the Castle Cave recovereddisarticulated human skeletal remains, one ofwhich provided a radiocarbon date in the8th-9th century AD.⁴

Excavation in the Castle Cave has also dateda midden deposit to 135-325 cal AD (SUERC-78964) in the Roman Iron Age, and there isalso evidence from the top of the cliff that theheadland the castle sits on was also occupiedat this time. Excavation of a small trench atthe north-eastern end of the promontory, inthe Gazebo Courtyard, uncovered thefoundations of a wall, built of large roundedboulders with courses of flat stone inbetween. This wall had collapsed onto a layerof animal bones, some of which wereidentified as red deer, one of which produceda radiocarbon date of 40BC – 130AD (SUERC-10771). It is clear, therefore, that CulzeanCastle was preceded by an Iron Age defendedsite, perhaps a possible fort similar to whatstill survives on the Heads of Ayr orDrumadoon Point, Arran, today.⁵

The name Culzean only came to the site whenit was granted by Gilbert, 4th Earl of Cassillis,

to his younger brother, Thomas Kennedy ofColean, in 1569. The original site of Colean wasinland from Turnberry, further south, but whenThomas was granted what was previouslyknown as Coif Castle or the House of Cove, itbegan to be referred to as Collean or Culzean.⁶This is most clearly seen on Gordon’s 1650smap of Ayrshire where both are marked, oneas ‘Koif C[astle].’ the other as ‘Cuillien’.⁷ It wasprobably this Sir Thomas Kennedy who wasresponsible for the construction of the L-plantower house, of which more anon.

Given the defensive nature of the site, it is likelyto have been used as a castle long before themid-16th century, and indeed the Kennedyfamily can trace their ancestry back to the 1100s.Unfortunately, there are no structural remainson the cliff top that have been dated to thisperiod. However, excavation of trial trenchesacross a wide circular enclosure ditch in a fieldat High Whitestone, 1km east of the castle onthe east of the Glenside Burn, was found to dateto 1290 –1410 AD (SUERC-33081), a date whichis also supported by a small assemblage of13th-14th century cooking pots. Until large-scale excavation is carried out on the cliff topat Culzean, however, our understanding ofeven the later medieval occupation of the sitehas to rely largely on informed guesswork. Weknow that so much of the castle and the hilltopwas dramatically changed during the buildingworks of the late 18th century,⁸ but, as apreliminary contribution towards improvingour understanding of the earlier castle layout,this paper uses the limited drawn record, in theform of sketches of the castle and a 1755 estateplan.

Sketches of the pre-Adam castle

The partial outline of the old tower at Culzeancan be seen in Robert Adam’s plan of thecastle where it is discernible in the core of thehouse.⁹ Both the interior and exterior of thehouse were so altered during the renovation



works in the 1770-90s, however, that the onlypart of it that it remains clearly evident is thethick wall between the armoury and thedrawing room on the ground floor.

Thankfully, there are a number of sketchesdating from before Robert Adam’s work thatshow the tower house from a variety of angleswhich help with understanding the mid-18thcentury (and presumably earlier) layout of thecastle. These sketches are drawn from thesouth-west, the east and the north-east.¹⁰Examining each sketch in turn provides a 270°panorama around the castle in an anti-clockwise direction, with only a view from thenorth-west, that is from the sea, missing.

Sketch 1 (Fig. 2)¹¹

This drawing from the south-west, which isthought to have been drawn by Robert Adamhimself and is part of the collection of hispapers held in the Sir John Soane Museum,shows a pathway leading up from where theDolphin House now is and follows the line ofthe overgrown path (A) known as Laundry

Maid’s walk. The location of the artist appearsto be above the sea and perhaps close to theposition of the timber Mast House, at thesouth-west end of the Battery, as the south-eastern face of the main tower is visible. Thispath leads to a doorway (B), a postern orsea-gate in a straight section of curtain wall.This wall and the angular wall that is locatedto the south-west of it appears to have aslightly crenellated wallhead. The differencein height and the vertical line in the middle ofthe latter section of wall could indicate abastion (C), set at an angle to the tower; thereis certainly no indication of a roof-line orchimneys at this point that would indicate abuilding. At the external angle of the bastion,outside the barmkin wall, there is a smallroofed structure (D), aligned north-south,with a single window in its gable. There is asmaller lean-to building (E) at the foot andagainst the south-east side of the exterior ofthe angled bastion, which has an opening,possibly a door, in its south-west gable.Beyond this is a structure, perhaps the end

Fig. 2. (Sketch 1) Culzean Castle from south-west, probably by Robert Adam, 1776 (Reproducedwith the kind permission of Sir John Soane Museum, London)



view of tower (F) with at least two levels,divided by a possible string course, andtopped with a crow-stepped gable. At theinside edge (on the north-west side) of thisbuilding there appears to be a chimney stack.

Inside the barmkin enclosure the main towerblock (G) is aligned south-west to north-east,and has three rows of windows on the south-east side. There are two windows on thesouth-west gable which probably light theattic space and a small window on the floorbelow. As the ground floor is hidden belowthe line of the barmkin wall it appears thatthe main tower consisted of a ground floor,with three floors and an attic above. The roofof the tower slopes to the eaves and there isno indication of battlements. There is achimney at each gable and possibly a third inthe middle of the north-east-facing wall.There is a square jamb (H) attached to thenorth-east side of the main tower at itsnorthern end. The pitched roof runs at rightangles to that of the main tower and ispossibly slightly higher. It has two chimneys,one at the north-west gable and another atthe junction with the main tower. There is asmall dormer window in the roof. The south-west façade of the jamb has a horizontal lineabove the third floor which might suggest thatthe roof was heightened by an inserted floor.A structure which is marked on the wall facebelow this line and descends two storeyscould be a corbelled-out stair-turret

What appears to be a square, flat roofed, stairtower (I) occupies the re-entrant angle betweenthe main tower and the jamb. From a distancethis square tower within the re-entrant angle isreminiscent of that at, for example,neighbouring Killochan Castle near Girvan.¹²

On the south-east side of the tower thereappear to be a number of trees between itand the barmkin wall which might be some ofthe fruit trees that were planted as part of the

terraced garden that lay downslope. Abovethese trees the gentle pitch of the pedimentedroof (J) of the gatehouse into the farm courtcan be seen. This building would later betopped with a castellated parapet by RobertAdam to form the clock-tower, but the line ofthe old pediment can still be seen its north-eastern façade.On the opposite, north-western, side of thetower a gable can clearly be seen of a building(K) which appears to butt up against the jamb.It is at least two storeys high, has a large singlewindow in its south-western gable and has atleast three chimneys. This is likely to havebeen the kitchen block.The final building (L) visible in this view fromthe south-west, is much clearer and seems tostand alone on the cliff edge and at a slightangle to the rest of the main buildings. It is oftwo storeys, has a pitched roof with fourevenly spaced chimneys along its length andhas two rows of seven sea-facing windows onits north-western side. There may be anotherchimney at the opposite end of the buildingon the north-western, cliff edge flank.Sketch 2 (Fig. 3)¹³This drawing from the south-east is a viewfrom the cliff top above the sandy bay wherethe Gas House is now located. It clearly showshow the land dropped on the landward sideof the castle, which was one of its defensivefeatures. On the far left-hand side of thesketch is a two-storeyed house (M) withpitched roof and three chimneys, known as‘Holehouse’ where Thomas Kennedy stayedin 1747 to avoid having to stay in the castlewith his mother, Lady Kennedy.¹⁴ Unfortu-nately, the walled garden is obscured by treesand must have occupied the dip betweenHolehouse and the castle.On the southern end of the castle hill is atwo-storeyed rectangular tower with a gabledroof (F). There are two windows facing south-



eastwards over the garden and a string coursebetween the floors. This tower appears tomatch the one visible on Sketch 1, and itsposition appears to line up with the north-eastern face of the main tower block (G).From the inner corner of this outer tower alength of barmkin wall (N) appears to rundiagonally from south to north and there isan arched gateway (O) towards its northernend. The lighter shading around the entrancemight indicate that this section of wall facedto the south-east. This must have been themain gateway into the courtyard surroundedby the barmkin wall.

The barmkin wall may have then turned at rightangles and appears to have joined the gable ofa building (K), which appears to be alignednorth-east to south-west and with a roof linewhich appears to continue beyond the end ofthe jamb of the main tower. It has a chimney onthe north-eastern gable and a larger chimneyon the south-eastern side, facing into thecourtyard. This is likely to have been the kitchenblock which also appears in Sketch 1.

To the north-east of the main castle andbarmkin this sketch shows the open C-shapedarrangement of what is now known as theClock Tower courtyard. The gate tower (P)with its pedimented roof sits in the centre ofthe complex. On either side of the gateway

there was an L-shaped block (J andQ) forming a half-court arrangementon the north-west. On the south-eastern side, the wing (J) was builtinto the slope and an arrangementof four arches must have been forcart-sheds. At the corner of theseL-shaped wings the roof is slightlyheightened to give the impressionof small towers. The roof is hippedand it is perhaps this that appearson Sketch 1 over the trees ratherthan the roof of the gatehouse. Thiscomplex of buildings acted as the

castle or mains farm, and must have beenconstructed around the mid-1760s. It doesnot appear on the estate plan of 1755;indeed, there are no buildings at this end ofthe castle hill on that plan, perhapssuggesting that any older buildings had beendemolished under the instructions of SirThomas Kennedy prior to 1766 when ‘part ofthe masons…went to clearing the rock forlaying the foundation of the Office houses inthe East and to hew stone for the building’.¹⁵

A single isolated small structure (R) with asloping roof is shown as the northernmostbuilding on the castle hill. This sits above thecliff face and is likely to be an earlier versionof the latrine block that is located theretoday. Two outlet chutes in the wall face arevisible from the beach.

Sketch 3 (Fig. 4)¹⁶

Viewing the castle from the north-east,where the artist was down at sea-levellooking across Gas House Bay, this etchingshows many of the buildings alreadydiscussed in the previous two sketches. Atthe far left, Holehouse Farm (M) is againvisible as a two storeyed, four-bayedbuilding, with a gabled roof and twochimneys. The main focus of the drawing isthe farm building complex with the central

Fig. 3. (Sketch 2) Culzean Castle from east, probably 1776but of uncertain authorship.



gate tower (P) with its pedimented roof, twowindows and high arched gateway. Theheightened corner of the wing (J) to the southof the gate stands out clearly, but the northwing (Q) is less clearly defined. Of note here isthe central feature on top of the pediment ofthe gate tower (P), possibly a chimney, whichwas also visible on Sketch 2. This feature doesnot appear on Sketch 1 which may support theargument that it is the gable of the southernwing tower (J) that is shown on that illustrationrather than the gate tower pediment (P).Three patches of white above the tree linemight represent an enclosing wall (S) on thenorth-eastern end of the farm courtyard.

The top two storeys of the gable of the maintower (G) are shown with two windows oneach floor. The roof is steeply pitched with achimney at each end. Likewise, the top twostoreys of the jamb (H) have two windows oneach floor, and its steeply pitched roof, atright angles to the main tower, also seems tohave a chimney at each end. Unlike Sketches

1 and 2 (Figs. 2-3) the artist has shown wallwalks on both the tower and jamb andpossible bartizans at the corners, perhapsartistic licence or a reflection of the fact thatthis sketch was undertaken before ‘all theroofs and turrets of the old castle werestripped and the walls heightened’ in 1766?Puzzlingly, however, the farm courtyard (J, P,Q) and the ‘slant’ block on the cliff edge (L)appear to be finished.The kitchen block (K) and the ‘slant’ block (L)are shown to the right of the jamb (H) on thissketch. The former is just a shadowy outlinewith two possible chimneys while the gableof the latter and possibly four chimneys canbe picked out.1755 Estate MapA fourth illustration of the castle before RobertAdam’s alterations from 1777 onwards isprovided by an estate map which is held in theCastle Office at Culzean and was drawn in 1755by John Foulis, recruited as the overseer forCulzean and the surrounding land by Thomas

Fig. 4. (Sketch 3) Culzean Castle from north-east, undated etching by John Clerk of Eldin (1728-1812), Robert Adam’s brother-in-law (Reproduced with the kind permission of The NationalGalleries of Scotland).



Kennedy. Fig. 5 is an enlarged extract from thismap which focuses on the castle precincts andhas been rotated to align north to the top.Perhaps the most clearly defined buildingmarked on the map is Holehouse (M) at thebottom right which has a chimney at eachgable matching the representations of it onSketches 2 and 3 (Figs. 3-4).As with Holehouse, most of the buildingsmarked on the map are depicted as blackrectangles. The exception to this conventionis the castle itself which is shown side-on in aschematic diagram which includes twobuildings (both here depicted upside down inthis rotated view), the main tower (G and H)shown as two storeys with three chimneysand a lower single-storeyed block (possiblythe kitchen, K) closer to the cliff edge. Thereappears to be an inner court around the towerhouse with a large open space to the north-east, enclosed by a wall and thus forming anouter court. It was to be at the far north-

eastern end of this open space that the farmcomplex with its pedimented gate tower (P)was built in the 1760s.To the south-east of the tower there are fourparallel walls which must represent threegarden terraces that were part of a 17th-century landscaping scheme, the north-east-ern third of which was extended in 1750.Unfortunately the map has been damagedslightly along the line of the uppermostterrace wall. Below the terraces the areawhich is now known as Fountain Court was awalled garden and is shown planted with tenlarge beds. The southern corner of thisgarden was located and recorded archaeolog-ically during insertion of new drains in Foun-tain Court and the northern wall flanking theentrance drive was located during previousground works there.¹⁷To the south-west of the tower, there is aclear L-shaped building which appears tomatch up with the angled bastion feature (C)

Fig. 5. Map of Culzean Castle and Estate by John Foulis, 1755: enlarged and rotated extract showingthe castle and its immediate surroundings (Copyright, National Trust for Scotland).



visible on Sketch 1 (Fig. 2). Perhaps this wasdefending the easiest approach to the sitefrom the south-west. Although no roof linesare visible on the sketch it is possible that thisbuilding represents a series of lean-tobuildings built against the inside face of thebarmkin wall. While the kitchen block (K) wasremodelled and enlarged in 1750, including anew oven of 2,000 bricks,¹⁸ other ancillarystructures were reported to be in a poor stateof repair in 1753. It was stated that thebakehouse would not stand much longer, thebrewhouse had had its thatch patched, thehigh school where the men slept was worseand the laigh (low) school had already blowndown.¹⁹ It sounds as though these buildingswere separate from the kitchen block and itseems that some of them may have been builtagainst the barmkin wall at the southerncorner of the site.To the north of the L-shaped block (C) on the1755 map there is another small rectangularbuilding (T) aligned south-west to north-east.It appears to stand on the inside of thebarmkin wall and is located where RobertAdam in 1779 replaced the old laundry towerwith his circular brewhouse complex.²⁰ It isthus possible that this building is the ‘oldlaundry’. It is also possible that a kink in thebarmkin enclosure wall to the north-east ofbuilding (T) might represent ‘Japie’s House’located on the cliff edge to the north-west ofthe castle. Demolished in 1750, its stoneswere retained for building the stablescomplex to the north-east in 1751. It remainsunknown who ‘Japie’ was, although the namesounds Dutch.²¹Further to the north-east there are twobuildings (U and V) which are aligned north-west to south-east and appear to have theirnorth-western ends on the foreshore. Thesetwo structures appear to relate to theposition of the stone walls that front the two

sets of caves below the castle. The south-western building (U) represents the positionof the entrance to the Castle Cave and thenorth-eastern one (V) represents the entranceto the Stables Cave.

Culzean Caves

Culzean Caves consist of two complexes,which are known as Castle Cave and StablesCave and are an integral part of the history ofsettlement on this site (Fig. 6). The two setsof walls which block off seaward access to theCastle Cave are clearly pre-Adam in date, andnow constitute the most substantial visibleremains of the late medieval castle (Fig. 7).Both sets of caves are statutorily protected asa Scheduled Monument and have recentlybeen the subject of archaeological recordingand excavation.²²

The Castle Cave complex is located immediatelybelow the drum tower of the mansion castle.It consists of three main chambers, A-C, thatare all conjoined and divided from each otherby stretches of built walling. Chamber A isfronted by a low arched entrance piercing amasonry wall that is a further two storeys high.Access is via a three-metre long vaultedentrance passageway that leads into the lowestpart of Chamber A, which is about 20m long by10m wide. On either side of the entrancepassage there is a small square aumbry,perhaps for holding lanterns. Above the vaultedentrance passage there was a small chamberwhich may have had a wooden south-easternwall and must have been accessed by a timberstair or ladder. This first-floor chamber was litby a single window above the main entrance.A timber second floor would have providedaccess to a defensive box machicolation abovethe entrance with a window to one side. Therewas a small latrine with an external chute in thesouth-western corner on this second floor.

At the back of Chamber A, on the eastern side,there is a small side chamber that is partly



screened off by a loosely built rubble wall. FromChamber A, a narrow pathway leads upwestwards to a doorway with a left-hand jamb.There is a small slit window immediately southof this jamb. The doorway was checked(rebated) on the western side and was clearlyintended to block access from the lowerChamber A into the higher Chamber B beyond.

In Chamber B there are two rubble–builtsquared pillars holding up elements of thebedrock roof. At the southern end of thechamber is a 3.5m-long rubble wall with acentral lintelled doorway leading through toChamber C. At the northern end of ChamberB, a narrow doorway leads down into a smallroom, which is approximately at the samelevel as the second floor of the rooms abovethe entrance to Chamber A. This small room

also appears to have functioned as a latrine,built against the sloping bedrock: it containsa box latrine and an aumbry. There is awindow in the northern wall and anothernarrow window high up in the western wallwhich faces up the cliff face to the south-west.

Next to the passageway down to the latrinebut at a higher level (about 1m higher –probably at a third floor level when viewedfrom outside) is the upper, arched, entrance.The western jamb and arch of this entranceare of similar rough construction to the twopillars in the inside and are likely to date to are-modelling of the cave, perhaps in the 18thcentury, during the works by Robert Adam.The eastern jamb appears to be of sandstonesimilar to the rest of the older masonry andis rebated for a door.

Fig. 6. Castle Cave:plan showing themain chambers,wall faces and thelocation of a trenchon the cliff facewhich indicatedthe position of apossible stair tothe cellars belowthe kitchen block( C o p y r i g h t ,National Trust forScotland)



This doorway must have led out onto atimber platform which in turn led to a now-vanished wooden stairway that may haveprovided access up the cliff face to the castleabove. Excavation on the cliff face, undertakenby an archaeologist with roped access skills,showed that the bedrock here had been fash-ioned into broad steps upon which a timberstair could have been founded.²³ This alsoexplains why there is a doorway exiting ontothe cliff-top from the cellars on the north sideof the drum tower above. While these cellarsand the drum tower were designed and built in

the late 18th century, it isclear that the doorwayreflects an earlier tradi-tional route down to thecaves but one which,apparently, quickly wentout of use in the 19th cen-tury. Although there are anumber of sketches andpaintings of Culzean Castlefrom the sea, only a coupleshow any hint of the cavesand there is certainly noindication of any accessdown the cliff face.²⁴

Direct access down to thecaves from the castleabove is suggested by theaccount of Sir William Bre-reton who visited Culzeanin 1634. He describes goingdown with one of Kenne-dy’s sons who, along with‘servants and others, tooka candle, and conducted usto the cave’ … [which]‘hath many narrow pas-sages and doors, galleriesalso, and a closet and diversrooms hewed with mightylabour out of a hard lime-

stone rock’.²⁵ The juxtaposition of the entranceto the Castle Cave and the kitchen on the cliff-top above is surely not just chance, and it seemsentirely reasonable to suppose that the caveswould have been used for storage of goodsbrought in by boat.

William Brereton also provides one of thefew descriptions of the interior of CulzeanCastle of which he says he ‘found there nohall, only a dining-room or hall, a fair roomand almost as large as the whole pile, butvery slatternly kept, unswept, dishes, tren-chers and wooden cups thrown up and down,

Fig. 7. Castle Cave: masonry frontages in cliff face incorporatingentrances and windows, and showing possible route to the castle,2008 (Copyright, National Trust for Scotland)



and the room very nasty and unsavoury.’²⁶This could be the first-floor hall in the towerwhich is also described in the 1744 inventoryof the castle from which it might be possibleto get a better understanding of the layoutof the pre-Adam L-shaped tower, but thatmust await another paper.²⁷

ConclusionWhat visitors to Culzean Castle see today islargely a result of the work of Robert Adamfrom the 1770s onwards and of lateradditions throughout the 19th century. Whileit can be difficult to convince them that thesite was once a medieval castle, a betterunderstanding of the earlier castle can begained by examination of the topography,the defensive location and the details thatare visible on the sketches. However, it isclear that these sources show the castle onlyin its immediate, pre-Adam phase, and thereare likely to have been other phases of

building, destruction and rebuilding in thepreceding centuries.Archaeological investigations on the cliff topand in the caves below have started to teaseout some of this longer chronological span,taking it back over 2,000 years, but the highmedieval period at Culzean still remains amystery. Perhaps larger-scale excavationsaround the periphery of the site, wheredeposits were pushed down slope, or piledbehind garden terrace walls, might be able tolocate remains associated with the use of thesite from the 12th to the 16th centuries. Someof the areas that could be targeted might beindicated by the schematic layout of buildingspresented in the final illustration (Fig. 8).

It is also clear that all of the upstandingstructures at Culzean would benefit from adetailed historic building survey similar to thestudy that the NTS commissioned for BrodickCastle on Arran.²⁸

Fig. 8. Culzean Castle: plan showing pre-Robert Adam buildings and features A-Y and theapproximate viewpoints of the three sketches reproduced in Figs 2-4 (based on an Ordnance Surveydigital map reproduced with the permission of HM Stationery Office, Crown Copyright NTS licenceNo. 100023880. All other data Copyright, National Trust for Scotland)



Notes and references1. Michael Moss, The ‘Magnificent Castle’ of Culzean

and the Kennedy Family (Edinburgh, 2002); DebbieM Jackson, A History of Culzean Castle Gardens,Ayrshire, 1597-1846 (University of St Andrews,M.Litt in Museum/Gallery Studies, 2000, availableonline at:https://www.academia.edu/597479/A_History_of_Culzean_Castle_Gardens_Ayrshire_1597_1846 )and The Building of Culzean Castle, Ayrshire(University of St Andrews, Museum & GalleryStudies, Extended Essay, revised October 2002,available online at:https://www.academia.edu/1522569/The_Building_of_Culzean_Castle_revised_Oct2002).

A full architectural description and analysis is alsocontained in Rob Close and Anne Riches, Ayrshireand Arran (The Buildings of Scotland, New Havenand London, 2012), 245-58.

2. National Trust for Scotland (NTS) Guidebook,Culzean Castle (Edinburgh, 2003); see also, DavidLearmont and Gordon Riddle, Culzean Castle andCountry Park (NTS, 1996)

3. Daphne Brooke, Wild Men and Holy Places: St Ninianand the Medieval Realm of Galloway (Edinburgh,1994), page 53

4. Derek Alexander, ‘Culzean Castle – Castle Cave, trialtrenching’, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland,new series, volume 5 (2004), pages 121-2

5. Historic Environment Scotland (HE) online record athttps://canmore.org.uk/site/40929/heads-of-ayrand:

https://canmore.org.uk/site/39199/arran-drum-doon-the-doon

6. Moss, op.cit, page 6; NTS Guidebook

7. National Library of Scotland, Maps by Robert andJames Gordon 1636-1652, ‘Cuningham’ Adv.MS.70.2.10 (Gordon 60), available online athttps://maps.nls.uk/rec/47

8. NTS Guidebook, page 16; Moss and Jackson, op cit.,passim

9. NTS Guidebook, page 16; see also the annotatedground plan based on Robert Adam’s 1785proposals for redeveloping the old castle in ArthurT Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and JamesAdam (London, 1922), pages 263-77 at 264

10. Moss, op. cit., pages 70-1; Jane Gilchrist,Alexander Nasmyth’s paintings of Culzean Castle:the relationship between the landscape andarchitecture (University of Edinburgh, History ofArt and Architectural History, unpublishedhonours dissertation, n.d.). Copy given to NTS

11. Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, SM AdamVolume 21/6, available online athttp://collections.soane.org/THES87990 andreproduced in Moss, op. cit., page 70

12. Illustrated in Moss, op.cit., page 29. Dateable by aninscription to 1586, the stair-tower at Killochanhouses what may be one of the earliest scale-and-platt stairs in the country (see John G Dunbar, TheHistoric Architecture of Scotland (London, 1966),pages 68, 74 and 78)

13. Reproduced in Moss, op.cit., page 71

14. Ibid., page 37

15. Ibid., page 61

16. National Galleries Scotland, P 2355.6 C, availableonline at https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/161853/culzean-castle

17. Claire Williamson and Joss Durnan, FountainCourt, Culzean, South Ayrshire: ArchaeologicalMitigation, Data Structure Report (NTS, 2017)

18. Moss, op.cit., page 42

19. Ibid., pages 48-50

20. Ibid., page 70

21. Ibid., pages 41-2

22. HES, Scheduled Monument SM 10364 at:http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/SM10364, noting, inter alia, measured surveyscarried out by Bob Heath in 1989. Invited to inspectthe cave interiors in 1989, the Royal Commissionon the Ancient and Historical Monuments ofScotland (RCAHMS) noted that the survivingdressed stone surrounds were wrought withchamfers and appeared to be of 17th-centurycharacter (Geoffrey Stell, pers.comm.).

For recent archaeological recording and excava-tion, see: Derek Alexander, ‘Culzean Castle –Castle Cave, laser scanning survey’, Discovery andExcavation in Scotland, new series, volume 4(2003), page 122, ‘Culzean Castle – Castle Cave,trial trenching’, Discovery and Excavation in Scot-



land, new series, volume 5 (2004), pages 121-2,Culzean Caves: Archaeological Survey and Evalu-ation – Project Design and Written Scheme ofInvestigation (NTS, 2017), Culzean Caves – Desk-based Assessment (NTS, May 2017), CulzeanCaves, Trial Trenching, Data Structure Reports(NTS, 2018 and 2019), and with Ian McHardy,‘Castle and Caves, Trial trenching’, Discovery andExcavation in Scotland, new series, volume 10(2009), page 171

23. Alexander and McHardy, loc.cit.

24. Gilchrist, op cit., catalogue numbers 12, 23 and 24

25. Moss, op. cit., page 12; see also, P Hume Brown(ed.), Early Travellers in Scotland (Edinburgh,1891), page 157. In the British Isles, the largest

Code Feature description Sketch 1 Sketch 2 Sketch 3 Map

A Pathways Yes No No NoB Doorways in barkin wall Yes No No NoC Angled structure/bastion? Yes No No YesD Building close to barmkin Yes No No NoE Lean-to hut Yes No No NoF Tower with crow-stepped gable Yes Yes No NoG Main Tower Yes Yes Yes YesH Jamb Yes Yes Yes NoI Square stair tower Yes No No NoJ S wing of stable block 1751 Yes Yes Yes NoK Kitchen block 1750 Yes Yes Yes YesL Slant block/accommodation 1766 Yes No Yes NoM Holehouse No Yes Yes YesN NE barmkin wall No Yes No NoO NE gate in barmkin wall No Yes No NoP Gate tower of stable block 1751 No Yes Yes NoQ North wing of stable block 1751 No Yes Yes NoR Latrine block 1751 No Yes Yes NoS Stable block courtyard wall No No Yes NoT Old Laundry? No No No YesU Castle Cave entrance No No No YesV Stable Cave entrance No No No YesW Garden Terraces No No No YesX Walled garden No No No YesY Kink in wall - site of Japie’s House? No No No Yes

Table - Feature codes for Figs 2-5 and 8

and most celebrated cave with a direct connec-tion to a medieval superstructure is WoganCavern beneath Pembroke Castle, Wales

26. Moss, op. cit., page 12

27. Moss, op. cit., page 31, citing National Recordsof Scotland, Marquess of Ailsa Family Papers,GD25/9/79, inventory of Sir John Kennedy, 1744

28. Tom Addyman, Brodick Castle Historic BuildingSurvey (NTS, five volumes, 2007)


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