Ayton Castle

Ayton Castle is a privately owned 19th century baronial-style mansion built to a James Gillespie Graham design. It is situated at the top of a steep slope above the Ayton burn, and is occasionally open to the public.

There was a tower at Ayton in the mid 15th century which was later occupied by the Home family, but who had actually built it is unknown. There was a family bearing the name de Ayton whose heiress married George Home of Dunglass in 1472, and following the 1448 destruction of the tower by the English, it had been rebuilt by 1497. In this year the English besieged and captured the castle, at which point it disappears from history.

The New Statistical Account records that Ayton House, a classical mansion built on what was supposed to have been the site of the old tower, burned down in 1834, and it was replaced in 1851 by the core of the building we can see today, now much extended.

HES Canmore database entry (old castle)

HES Canmore database entry (mansion)

Official Ayton Castle website