Lochnaw Castle, Dumfries and Galloway
Photo © Richard Paxman, 5 July 2007
Lochnaw Castle, Dumfries and Galloway
Photo © Richard Paxman,
5 July 2007
Lochnaw Castle is a 16th century tower house five miles from the town of Stranraer, Dumfries and Galloway. An earlier, ruined castle stands on an island in the nearby Lochnaw loch.
--LOCHNAW CASTLE, WIGTONSHIRE.
This castle is situated in the parish of Leswalt, on a small fresh-water loch about five miles west from Stranraer. The locality is one of considerable beauty, and the utmost has been done to develop the natural features of the scene, so that the surroundings of the castle are of a very charming description.
The old keep is completely cast into the shade by a large modern house which has been erected beside it.
The old building consists of a square sixteenth-century keep at the south-east corner of a courtyard, which is surrounded with ranges of seventeenth and eighteenth-century buildings. The keep is a small structure, about 23 feet square, containing one apartment on each floor, with a continuous wheel-stair in the north-west corner, finished at the top with a picturesque capehouse. Adjoining this a portion of the parapet is projected, so as to form an aperture or machicolation for defending the door by dropping down stones or other missiles. On the east parapet a projection is corbelled out to form a passage round the chimney, at each side of which there are small shot or spy-holes.
The buildings on the south and west sides of the courtyard were erected by Sir Andrew Agnew and his wife, Dame Anna Stewart, daughter of the first Earl of Galloway. Their initials, with the Stewart arms and date (1663), may be seen on the dormers. They are also carved in another place, with the inscription, "Except the Lord Builde the House they Labour in vaine that Builde."
The range on the north side is dated 1704.
The family of Agnew, as is well known, have been possessed of Lochnaw from almost the beginning of written Scottish history. Whether the following inscription, which exists at the house, refers to the existing keep may, however, be doubted
DOM. ANDR
EAS. AGNEV
1426
NOMEN. DOMI NI.
FORTISSI MA. TURRIS.
In The Hereditary Sheriffs of Galloway an earlier castle is spoken of as being situated on an island in the loch. This, along with the lands, was forcibly taken possession of and blown up by Archibald the Grim in 1390. In 1426 the Douglases resigned the Bailiery of Leswalt back to Andrew Agnew, and he is said to have then built this tower. It bears some resemblance to Law and Barr Castles in Ayrshire, and may be classed with them in the Third Period. When the first Statistical Account was written, there were vestiges of the fosse to be seen on the south side, and it is further stated that at that time the loch was drained.
THE CASTELLATED AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF SCOTLAND BY DAVID MACGIBBON AND THOMAS ROSS, 1889--