Castle Kennedy is a small village east of

Stranraer Stranraer ( , in Scotland also ; gd, An t-Sròn Reamhar ), also known as The Toon, is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is located in the historical parish of Inch in the historic county of Wigtownshire. It lies on the shores of L ...

Dumfries and Galloway Dumfries and Galloway ( sco, Dumfries an Gallowa; gd, Dùn Phrìs is Gall-Ghaidhealaibh) is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands. It covers the counties of Scotland, historic counties of ...

, south-west Scotland. It is on the

A75 road The A75 is a primary trunk road in Scotland, linking Stranraer and its ferry ports at Cairnryan with the A74(M) at Gretna, close to the border with England and the M6 motorway. Route Heading west along the south coast of Scotland from its jun ...

, and is within the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Inch Measuring tape with inches The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to yard or of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth") ...

. The village is to the south of the Lochinch Castle estate, which includes the ruins of the 17th-century

Castle Kennedy Castle Kennedy is a small village east of Stranraer in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. It is on the A75 road, and is within the civil parishes in Scotland, civil parish of Inch, Wigtownshire, Inch. The village is to the south of the ...

, as well as Castle Kennedy Gardens which are open to the public. Prior to the Reformation the two lochs within the Lochinch estate, Black Loch and White Loch, were together known as Loch Crindil. A small island in the White Loch was the site of a church, which may have given the parish its name: "the Inch", from the gd, innis, meaning "island". Castle Kennedy was built in 1607 as a mansion house by the

Earl of Cassilis Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particular ...

, on the site of an older castle. It was acquired in 1677 by Sir John Dalrymple, later the

Earl of Stair Earl of Stair is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1703 for the lawyer and statesman John Dalrymple, 2nd Viscount of Stair. Dalrymple's father, James Dalrymple, had been a prominent lawyer; having served as Lord President ...

, though the house burned down in 1716. The 2nd Earl retained the ruin as a focal point for new formal gardens laid out from 1720 to 1730, following his time as ambassador at

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...

upon which it was based. The earl used troops to landscape the estate, including several focal features such as "The Giant's Grave", "Mount Marlborough" and the "Dancing Green". In the 1860s the 9th and 10th Earls built Lochinch Castle on the estate, in a "Franco-Scottish style", and partially restored the 18th-century gardens that had fallen into disrepair. The estate remains the property of the Earl of Stair, and Castle Kennedy Gardens are open to the public. Restoration of the gardens continues. Because of the

Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Current, North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida a ...

and the proximity of the sea on two sides, the gardens enjoy a mild climate which permits the cultivation of a range of

rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...

s and other plants not often seen in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Castle Kennedy had a station on the

Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Railway The Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint RailwaysThe final word is in the plural. was a network of railway lines serving sparsely populated areas of south-west Scotland. The title appeared in 1885 when the previously independent Portpatrick Rai ...

, which opened in 1861 and closed in 1965. The station building is now a house, and the closest station is at

. During the Second World War an airfield was constructed to the east of the village: it operated from 1941 to 1945, and the runways remain in place. The village has its own primary school, with a roll of 38 pupils. The former

RAF Castle Kennedy Royal Air Force Castle Kennedy, or more simply RAF Castle Kennedy, is a former Royal Air Force satellite station located in Castle Kennedy, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The following units were here at some point: * No. 2 Squadron RAF * N ...

is located nearby.

References

External links

*
Castle Kennedy Gardens websiteCastle Kennedy map - Roy Military Survey of Scotland 1745-55
(National Library of Scotland) {{authority control Villages in Dumfries and Galloway