Pollock Castle, also known as Pollok Castle, was a tower house castle located to the west of modern

Newton Mearns Newton Mearns ( sco, The Mearns; gd, Baile Ùr na Maoirne ) is a suburban town and the largest settlement in East Renfrewshire, Scotland. It lies southwest of Glasgow City Centre on the main road to Ayrshire, above sea level. It has a popu ...

East Renfrewshire East Renfrewshire ( sco, Aest Renfrewshire; gd, Siorrachd Rinn Friù an Ear) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. Until 1975, it formed part of the county of Renfrewshire for local government purposes along with the modern council areas ...

, on the opposite side of the

M77 motorway The M77 motorway is a motorway in Scotland. It begins in Glasgow at the M8 motorway at Kinning Park, and terminates near Kilmarnock at Fenwick, becoming the A77 dual carriageway. Changes were made in 2005 segregating a lane on the M8 motor ...

from the town. The castle appears on

Timothy Pont Rev Timothy Pont (c. 1560–c.1627) was a Scottish minister, cartographer and topographer. He was the first to produce a detailed map of Scotland. Pont's maps are among the earliest surviving to show a European country in minute detail, from an ...

's map (1583–96), as a castle named ''Pook'' and also appears on

Joan Blaeu Joan Blaeu (; 23 September 1596 – 21 December 1673) was a Dutch cartographer born in Alkmaar, the son of cartographer Willem Blaeu. Life In 1620, Blaeu became a doctor of law but he joined the work of his father. In 1635, they publish ...

's map of 1654. The castle was rebuilt between 1686 and 1694 by Sir Robert Pollok, 1st Baronet of Pollok, with a new east wing. Further extensions included an enclosing courtyard with an ornate gateway and formal walled garden with corner pavilions.

William Roy Major-General William Roy (4 May 17261 July 1790) was a Scottish military engineer, surveyor, and antiquarian. He was an innovator who applied new scientific discoveries and newly emerging technologies to the accurate geodetic mapping of ...

's map (1747–55) shows the castle and landscape in detail.Roy Lowlands, 1752-55
Explore georeferenced maps ( National Library of Scotland) It was destroyed by fire in 1882, but rebuilt afterwards in 1886 in the

Scots Baronial Style architecture Scottish baronial or Scots baronial is an architectural style of 19th century Gothic Revival which revived the forms and ornaments of historical architecture of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Reminiscent of Sco ...

, incorporating the surviving elements of the earlier structure. It was requisitioned by the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

in 1939 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, bar one wing occupied by the Pollok family throughout the war and the lands used as an ammunition dump. In 1944, Miss Fergusson Pollok, the then owner, abandoned the castle and it then deteriorated. It was required to be demolished in 1952. In 1970, all that remained of the castle were the two gatehouses, the stable, and the gardener's cottage, the castle's stone foundations, the south entrance steps and a few stones that once formed the castle's massive walls. Some of the ruins were dynamited in the 1970s and a large prefabricated house erected on the castle foundations by Mr Greer, who purchased Pollok Castle Estate from a timber merchant. The gatehouses at each end of the estate were also rebuilt, along with the gardener's house and the castle stables, and sold on as private residences. The prefabricated house was removed and the site cleared in the early 1990s and the castle was again rebuilt in 2003, in the Scottish

Adam style The Adam style (or Adamesque and "Style of the Brothers Adam") is an 18th-century neoclassical style of interior design and architecture, as practised by Scottish architect William Adam and his sons, of whom Robert (1728–1792) and James (17 ...

. Some of the original foundations and castle walls remain, on which the house has been built, notably a portion of the north wall still remains.

Citations

References

*Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division *Blaeu, Joan 1596-167
''Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654''
''National Library of Scotland'' {{coord, 55, 46, 57.4, N, 4, 21, 20.2, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title History of East Renfrewshire Former castles in Scotland Demolished buildings and structures in Scotland Buildings and structures demolished in 1952