Montfode Castle, North Ayrshire
Photo © Leslie barrie, 6 December 2008
Montfode Castle, North Ayrshire
Photo © Leslie barrie,
6 December 2008
West Kilbride is a village in North Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland by the Firth of Clyde, looking across the water to Goat Fell and the Isle of Arran. West Kilbride and adjoining districts of Seamill and Portencross are generally considered to be a small town, having a combined population of 4,393 at the 2001 census.
Located south-east of West Kilbride, Montfode Castle was a 16th-century Z-plan tower house of the Montfodes. The family became extinct in the 17th-century. In the 19th-century the castle was mostly demolished; the stonework being used in the construction of a nearby mill.
The Castle of Montfode is situated on the banks of Montfode Burn, near the coast-side, immediately north of Ardrossan. The castle seems to have consisted of a large oblong square tower. It is now in ruins, having been demolished, within memory, for purposes connected with the construction of water-power to drive a threshing-machine. The only portion now remaining is the round tower and door-way. The tower formed the stair-case to the other portions of the building. The place is of decided antiquity, having been the property of a family of the same name — Montfode of Montfode — from a very early period. No precise tree of the descent of the family, which has become extinct, can now be made up; but it can be traced so far from the scattered notices of it which occur in the local history of the county, and in evidents connected with the district. The Montfodes, like most of the other families of Cuninghalne, are supposed — how truly we cannot say — to have been vassals of the De Morvilles, first Lords of Cuninghame. Johanne de Montfode — the first of the name, so far as has been discovered — is witness to a donation by Humphrey de Berkeley to the abbot and monks of Aberbrothock, which donation was confirmed by William the Lion in 1165. The next we meet with is John de Montfode who had a grant of the lands of Robertstoun, in Lanarkshire, from Robert the Bruce; and whose daughter, Agnes, married Sir John Douglas, progenitor of the Earls of Morton. In the time of David II., there was a William Monfode who had a charter of confirmation from Margaret Abemethie, Countess of Angas, of the lands of Balmedy, Lanark. Margaret Monfode, in the same reign, gave a charter to her husband, Walter de Cragy, of the lands of Hebedis in Lanarkshire.
Reference
HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE BY JAMES PATERSON 1866