Baldoon Castle was a 16th-century castle about south west of

Wigtown Wigtown ( (both used locally); gd, Baile na h-Ùige) is a town and former royal burgh in Wigtownshire, of which it is the county town, within the Dumfries and Galloway region in Scotland. It lies east of Stranraer and south of Newton Stewart. ...

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 ...

, south of the

river Bladnoch The Bladnoch is a river in Wigtownshire in the Machars of Galloway in southwest Scotland. One of the earliest descriptions of it is given by Sir Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw and Sir David Dunbar in an appendix to Andrew Symson's work "A Large Descrip ...

.Coventry, Martin (2001). ''The Castles of Scotland''. Musselburgh: Goblinshead. p. 65

History

The Dunbars of Westfield owned the property for almost three centuries from 1533-4. It was a gift from

King James V James V (10 April 1512 – 14 December 1542) was King of Scotland from 9 September 1513 until his death in 1542. He was crowned on 21 September 1513 at the age of seventeen months. James was the son of King James IV and Margaret Tudor, and dur ...

to Archibald Duncan.

Structure

Little remains of the castle: only a length of the south wall with the springing of at least three walls on its north face, and the remains of an entrance gateway lying to the north. The gateway dates from the 17th century, and are described as a good example of

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

work.

The gate piers which were part of the entrance to the castle with bands of stylised rock-faced rustication alternating with lozenges. They are topped by

cornices In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and moulded scroll caps. The gate piers are registered as a Category A Listed Building.

Tradition

It is said that the ghost of Janet Dalrymple of Carscreugh haunts the ruin, in a bloodied wedding dress. Janet was forced to marry Sir David Dunbar of Carscreugh Castle although she had fallen in love with another man, the impoverished Archibald 3rd Lord Rutherfurd. She either was murdered on her wedding night or died insane shortly afterward. The story is the basis for both

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...

’s

The Bride of Lammermoor ''The Bride of Lammermoor'' is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, published in 1819, one of the Waverley novels. The novel is set in the Lammermuir Hills of south-east Scotland, shortly before the Act of Union of 1707 (in the first editio ...

and Gaetano Donizetti’s opera

Lucia di Lammermoor ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' () is a (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel '' The Bride of Lammermoo ...

.The Douglas Archive
The Douglas Archives
/ref>

References

{{Authority control Castles in Dumfries and Galloway Category A listed buildings in Dumfries and Galloway