Castle Wemyss was a large mansion in Wemyss Bay, Scotland. It stood on the southern shore of the

Firth of Clyde The Firth of Clyde, is the estuary of the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland. The Firth has some of the deepest coastal waters of the British Isles. The Firth is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre, Kintyre Peninsula. The ...

at Wemyss Point, where the firth turns southwards.

History

It was built around 1850 for Charles Wilsone Brown, a property developer who had plans to develop the land around Wemyss Bay, and who by 1855 had increased the number of villas from four to thirty-six. These villas earned the nickname 'Little Glasgow' because they were let to wealthy

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

merchants. Wilsone Brown sold the mansion to Sir John Burns (later

Baron Inverclyde Baron Inverclyde, of Castle Wemyss in the County of Renfrew, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1897 for the Scottish shipowner John Burns, 1st Baron Inverclyde, Sir John Burns, 2nd Baronet. The Baronetcy had been ...

) in 1860. Burns commissioned the architect

Robert William Billings Robert William Billings (London 25 July 1812 – 14 November 1874 London) was a British architect and author. He trained as a topographical draughtsman, wrote and illustrated many books early in his career, before concentrating on his architec ...

to remodel the house in the

Scottish baronial style 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 Scot ...

, expanding the original structure by adding a new floor, new wings and a clock tower to the south-east corner. Castle Wemyss became a fashionable destination for many well-known visitors, including

Lord Shaftesbury Earl of Shaftesbury is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1672 for Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Baron Ashley, a prominent politician in the Cabal then dominating the policies of King Charles II. He had already succeeded his fa ...

Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope ( ; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among the best-known of his 47 novels are two series of six novels each collectively known as the ''Chronicles of Barsetshire ...

General Sherman William Tecumseh Sherman ( ; February 8, 1820February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a General officer, general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), earning recognit ...

Henry Morton Stanley Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author, and politician famous for his exploration of Central Africa and search for missi ...

Peter II of Yugoslavia Peter II Karađorđević (; 6 September 1923 – 3 November 1970) was the last King of Yugoslavia, reigning from October 1934 until he was deposed in November 1945. He was the last reigning member of the Karađorđević dynasty. The eldest ...

, Emperor

Haile Selassie Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...

and members of the

British royal family The British royal family comprises Charles III and other members of his family. There is no strict legal or formal definition of who is or is not a member, although the Royal Household has issued different lists outlining who is considere ...

. It is reputed that Trollope wrote part of ''

Barchester Towers ''Barchester Towers'' is a novel by English author Anthony Trollope published by Longmans in 1857. It is the second book in the ''Chronicles of Barsetshire'' series, preceded by '' The Warden'' and followed by '' Doctor Thorne''. In his autob ...

'' whilst at Wemyss Bay, and that 'Portray Castle' in ''

The Eustace Diamonds ''The Eustace Diamonds'' is a novel by Anthony Trollope, first published between 1871 and 1873 as a serial in the '' Fortnightly Review''. It is the third of the " Palliser" series of novels, though the characters of Plantagenet Palliser and hi ...

'' was based on Castle Wemyss. Whether this is true or not, Trollope places Portray in a similar geographical location, with a description which is very like that of the castle and its grounds. Trollope did however include the real Castle Wemyss in his travelogue '' How the 'Mastiffs' Went to Iceland'', a record of a trip from the Clyde to Iceland in June and July 1878.Digitized version of ''How the 'Mastiffs' Went to Iceland''
at The

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

The house remained in the Burns family until the death of Alan, 4th Baron Inverclyde, in 1957. None of his family was able to afford the cost of maintaining such a large property and it was sold to a developer. Inverkip Power Station was built on the northern part of the estate grounds.

Subsequent Use

Greenfield legislation meant that whilst much of the larger estate was developed as Wemyss Bay grew in the 1960s and 1970s, the house itself was left untouched. Gradually falling into decay (and subsequently de-roofed to avoid payment of housing rates) it was not until 1984 that it was finally demolished. In the 1990s the grounds themselves were finally redeveloped, and all that now remains of the house is a broken flight of stone steps and a flagpole. An established monkey puzzle tree marking the entrance to the drive had to be removed for safety reasons. However, the locally formed Woodlands Trust have started to reclaim the Victorian

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

ery from the

rhododendrons ''Rhododendron'' (; : ''rhododendra'') is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayan region, b ...

. Formal paths have now been established in the woods which are immediately adjacent to the site of the former castle.

References

{{coord, 55.89112, N, 4.89688, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(NS189702), display=title Wemyss Demolished buildings and structures in Scotland Country houses in Inverclyde Former country houses in Scotland Scottish country houses destroyed in the 20th century