Lainshaw Castle was a

15th century The 15th century was the century which spans the Julian dates from 1 January 1401 ( MCDI) to 31 December 1500 ( MD). In Europe, the 15th century includes parts of the Late Middle Ages, the Early Renaissance, and the early modern period. ...

castle about south-west of

Stewarton Stewarton ( sco, Stewartoun,
gd, Baile nan Stiùbhar ...

East Ayrshire East Ayrshire ( sco, Aest Ayrshire; gd, Siorrachd Àir an Ear) is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland. It shares borders with Dumfries and Galloway, East Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire. The headquar ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, to the north of

Annick Water The Annick Water (previously also spelled as Annack, Annoch (1791) or Annock) is the largest tributary of the River Irvine. The river runs from Long Loch, just inside East Renfrewshire, in a generally south-western direction through North Ayr ...

.Coventry, Martin (2001). ''The Castles of Scotland''. Musselburgh: Goblinshead. p. 2233 The castle was incorporated into Lainshaw House over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries.

History

The castle belonged to the Stewarts and served as the baronial castle of Stewarton, but in 1570 it passed to the Montgomeries.

William Cunninghame William Cunninghame of Lainshaw (1731–1799) was a leading Tobacco Lord who headed one of the major Glasgow syndicates that came to dominate the transatlantic tobacco trade.

, one of the

tobacco lords The Tobacco Lords were a group of Scottish merchants and slave traders who in the 18th century made enormous fortunes by trading in tobacco. Many became so wealthy that they adopted the lifestyle of aristocrats, lavishing vast sums on great hous ...

, bought it in 1779 from Sir Walter Montgomerie-Cunninghame, 10th Laird of Lainshaw, who had been impoverished by the American War of Independence. The rear three- storey wing may have been built by Cunninghame. Inheriting the estate upon his father's death in 1799, his third son,

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, began an extensive program of modernising the structure in the

classical style Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the works of the Roman architect V ...

; in 1824 a Tudor-Gothic extension was added.

Structure

Lainshaw Castle was described by Pont in 1608 as 'a stronge old Dunijon'. In the present structure most of the ground-floor walls and the face of the south-east wall to a height of over belong to the original castle. Two small ground-floor windows and a larger third-floor window with roll moulding are prominent among features remaining. The surviving walls have been pierced by various doorway, providing access to later structural additions, with some subsequently being blocked. Three different rooflines are may be seen on the south eastern wall face. While there is little sound dating evidence for this structure, it is thought to date from between the late 15th century to the early 16th century.

References

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