Dundonald Castle

Dundonald Castle was a large tower-keep and associated courtyard built upon the remains of a 13th century towered courtyard castle, itself used as a fortified residence or settlement in earlier centuries. The ruins are managed by the Friends of Dundonald Castle, a charity, and is open to the public for a fee.

Dundonald lies in the district of Ayrshire known as Kyle Stewart, which was historically part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde. In the 12th century, Walter fitzAlan was granted lands which included the boroughs of Renfrew and Paisley, and received other grants including forests and fisheries. Although he came north with David I and witnessed many of his documents, he is not recorded as having possessed lands in Scotland until the reign of Malcolm IV, by which time he had extensive estates in the Strathclyde area, and under Malcolm he is on record as the first Steward. It is therefore likely that the earliest castle of the Stewards at Dundonald dates to the latter 12th century, and developed steadily to form a large courtyard castle with two gatehouses and four mural towers. This was destroyed during the Wars of Independence, when James Stewart was a partisan of Robert Bruce, as well as the lord of William Wallace. By 1371, when Robert Stewart became King Robert II, a new royal castle had been founded, using the structure of one of the gatehouses as his new tower-keep. After he died here in 1390 it fell out of favour as a royal residence, although Robert III did spend time here, given that the focus of power was the Duke of Albany. King James I was not particularly interested in it as a palace, and in the mid 15th century the courtyard wall was then added, replacing an earlier bank and palisade – this may not even have been a royal initiative. From this point on a sequence of local families looked after the place until it was little more than a local prison. When it was sold to William Cochrane in 1638, it was abandoned and used as a quarry for his new house at Auchans.

Official Dundonald Castle website

HES Canmore database entry