Ardkinglas House is a

Category A listed This is a list of Category A listed buildings in Scotland, which are among the listed buildings of the United Kingdom. For a fuller list, see the pages linked on List of listed buildings in Scotland. Key The organization of the lists in th ...

country house on the Ardkinglas Estate in

Argyll Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland. Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...

, Scotland. The estate lies on the eastern shore of

Loch Fyne Loch Fyne ( gd, Loch Fìne, ; meaning "Loch of the Vine/Wine"), is a sea loch off the Firth of Clyde and forms part of the coast of the Cowal peninsula. Located on the west coast of Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It extends inland from the Soun ...

, and the house is located close to the village of

Cairndow Cairndow; ( gd, An Càrn Dubh) is a coastal hamlet, on the Cowal peninsula in Argyll and Bute, Scottish Highlands. The town lies between the A83 road and the head of Loch Fyne. Cairndow's school closed in 1988 after the roll fell to just 3 pu ...

. Dating back to the 14th century and originally a

Campbell Campbell may refer to: People Surname * Campbell (surname), includes a list of people with surname Campbell Given name * Campbell Brown (footballer), an Australian rules footballer * Campbell Brown (journalist) (born 1968), American television ne ...

property, the estate now covers more than of rolling hills and landscaped parkland. The centre of the estate was Ardkinglas Castle until this was replaced by a new house in the 18th century. This house was itself replaced by the present Ardkinglas House in the early 20th century, designed by

Sir Robert Lorimer Sir Robert Stodart Lorimer, KBE (4 November 1864 – 13 September 1929) was a prolific Scottish architect and furniture designer noted for his sensitive restorations of historic houses and castles, for new work in Scots Baronial and Gothi ...

for Sir Andrew Noble. It remains the property of the Noble family, and is open to the public on a limited basis. The

woodland garden A woodland garden is a garden or section of a garden that includes large trees and is laid out so as to appear as more or less natural woodland, though it is often actually an artificial creation. Typically it includes plantings of flowering shru ...

s are open all year round.

Estate history

Ardkinglas Castle

Ardkinglas Castle is thought to date from the 14th century. It was built in the form of a quadrangle around an inner courtyard measuring in each direction. There were large turrets on three of the corners, to the front there was a large gate tower with two flanking defensive turrets. By 1769 the castle was reported destroyed. James VI of Scotland made James Campbell of Ardkinglas comptroller and in February 1584 "general searcher" of customs of the West Sea, with powers to apprehend ships with forbidden cargoes. On 23 March 1679, Colin Campbell of Ardkinglas was made a

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14t ...

. His son

Sir James Campbell, 2nd baronet Sir James Campbell, 2nd Baronet of Ardkinglass, (c.1666 – 5 July 1752) was a British Army officer and Scottish politician who sat in the Parliament of Scotland from 1703 to 1707 and in the British House of Commons from 1707 to 1741. Early life ...

, (died 1752) sat in the

Parliament of Scotland The Parliament of Scotland ( sco, Pairlament o Scotland; gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba) was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland from the 13th century until 1707. The parliament evolved during the early 13th century from the king's council o ...

from 1702 and, following the

Union of Scotland and England The Acts of Union ( gd, Achd an Aonaidh) were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act 1707 passed by the Parliament of Scotland. They put into effect the te ...

, in the

Westminster Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

until 1741. He purchased the Dunderave estate around 1700, and was succeeded by his grandson, Lt.Col. Sir James Livingston-Campbell, son of his eldest daughter Helen.

The first Ardkinglas House

During the 18th century the Campbells commissioned designs for a new house at Ardkinglas from some of the leading architects of the day, including Colen Campbell,

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his ...

and James Playfair. None of these designs were built, and the house constructed in 1795 has been described as "rather dull". This house was destroyed by fire in 1831 and, despite further designs from architects including

William Burn William Burn (20 December 1789 – 15 February 1870) was a Scottish architect. He received major commissions from the age of 20 until his death at 81. He built in many styles and was a pioneer of the Scottish Baronial Revival,often referred ...

and Alexander Binning, the family moved into the stable block which was adapted as the main house. In 1810, when Sir Alexander Livingston-Campbell died, Ardkinglas was inherited by his cousin James Callander of Craigforth, who subsequently changed his name to Campbell and adopted the style of a baronet, although he was not entitled to do so.

The present house

In 1905 Ardkinglas was purchased by Sir Andrew Noble, an expert on ballistics and gunnery who was chairman of Lord Armstrong's artillery works in

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

. Ardkinglas House was designed by architect

, and construction began in May 1906. Although Noble's deadline for completion of 1 August 1907 was not met, the house was fully completed in 21 months. The house was lit with electricity powered from a

hydro-electric plant Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

on the estate. John Noble inherited the estate in 1972, and began farming oysters in the loch. In 1988 he opened the first Loch Fyne Oyster Bar, now a national chain. The house has been used as a filming location for television series, including ''The Crow Road'' and films including '' The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep''. It is open to the public, although not on a regular basis. The house's original "Butler's Quarters" can be rented out.

Ardkinglas Gardens

The Woodland Gardens, dating back to the 18th century, are open year-round with views of the exterior of Ardkinglas House and its backdrop onto Loch Fyne. The Arboretum was planted in the 1860s-70s by the Callander family and has some specimens of large trees. One of these trees a

Grand Fir ''Abies grandis'' (grand fir, giant fir, lowland white fir, great silver fir, western white fir, Vancouver fir, or Oregon fir) is a fir native to the Pacific Northwest and Northern California of North America, occurring at altitudes of sea leve ...

(Abies grandis) held the record for many years as "The Tallest tree in Britain", another tree a

Silver Fir Silver fir is a common name for several trees and may refer to: *''Abies alba ''Abies alba'', the European silver fir or silver fir, is a fir native to the mountains of Europe, from the Pyrenees north to Normandy, east to the Alps and the Car ...

(Abies alba) is described as the "Mightiest Conifer in Europe" with a trunk girth of over .

Ardkinglas Railway

The Ardkinglas Railway was a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

estate railway built to serve the Ardkinglas Estate, former seat of Sir James Campbell, 2nd Baronet, of Ardkinglass, on the shores of

. The railway ran along the shore of the loch from a boat house at Caspian. The railway was built as a transportation system for the estate and as a garden toy for the estate's 17th Laird, George Livingston-Campbell-Callander. A single steam locomotive operated the line; rolling stock consisted of a two-seat open passenger carriage and several wagons. The railway had been dismantled by 1897 and the equipment sold. The boiler from the locomotive was still in situ on the beach at Tayvallich on

Loch Sween ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spellin ...

until the early 1950s.

References

* {{Authority control Houses in Argyll and Bute Category A listed buildings in Argyll and Bute Highland Estates Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes Castles in Argyll and Bute Former castles in Scotland Transport in Argyll and Bute Woodland gardens Country houses in Argyll and Bute