Ardstinchar Castle, Ayrshire
Photo © Bill McCrorie, June 2005
Ardstinchar Castle, Ayrshire
Photo © Bill McCrorie,
June 2005
Ardstinchar Castle first built in 1421, in 1770 stones from the ruined castle were used to build a bridge over the river stinchar.
This castle was the seat of the Kennedies, lairds of Bargany. Though now reduced to a fragment of the keep and a few foundations of the walls, it was once a place of some extent and importance. It stands close to the village of Ballantrae, near the mouth of the River Stinchar, on a rocky height commanding the entrance into Carrick from the south, both by the coast and by the valley of the Stinchar.
The Historie of the Kennedyis states that the castle was built by Hugh Kennedy in the middle of the fifteenth century. The castle has been of considerable extent, the buildings having occupied an irregular platform about 120 feet from north to south and about the same from east to west. The outline can be traced, but the structures are almost entirely gone. The entrance gate was apparently at the north-west angle, and the keep, a small part of which only now exists occupied the highest point at the eastern angle. The corbels of the parapet are the only details, and they are of the simplest pattern.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century a deadly feud arose between the laird of Bargany and the Earl of Cassillis, in consequence of which Bargany, with a few attendants, while returning from Ayr, was attacked by the earl with about thirty horsemen. Bargany was wounded and carried to Ayr, where he died, and his body remained in a leaden coffin in the kirk. Some time afterwards (1605) Lady Bargany died also, and was laid beside her husband in the Kirk of Ayr.
The tomb still exists, the "aisle" or wing built by Lady Bargany having been preserved when the rest of the church was demolished.
It is an excellent example of the "glorious tombs" which it was the fashion to erect in the seventeenth century. This aisle and tomb still constitute the last resting-place of the descendants of the ancient family of the Kennedies of Bargany.