Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire () (; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. Renfrewshire is located in the west central Lowlands. It borders East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire, and lies on the southern ba ...
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Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
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It belonged to the Houstons of Milliken, who acquired the estate of Easter Cochrane in 1773. The original structure was substantially enlarged in 1771 and 1812 by George Houston, who had the structure remodelled in a castellated style complete with a turret at the left hand of the front elevation, possibly by the architect
James Gillespie Graham
James Gillespie Graham (11 June 1776 – 21 March 1855) was a Scottish architect, prominent in the early 19th century. Much of his work was Scottish baronial in style. A prominent example is Ayton Castle. He also worked in the Gothic Revival ...
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The most notable features were
barrel vault
A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...
ed rooms in the ground floor. Externally in addition to the battlemented decoration there was a rope-styled
string course
A belt course, also called a string course or sill course, is a continuous row or layer of stones or brick set in a wall. Set in line with window sills, it helps to make the horizontal line of the sills visually more prominent. Set between the ...
. Although the castle and policies were considered particularly picturesque, the continued growth of the town of Johnstone reduced its size and the estate had largely disappeared by the start of the 20th century. Much of the house was demolished in 1950, and most of the remainder of the grounds was purchased by the local authority for housing in 1956.
Today all that remains is the central square tower along with a
crow-step
A stepped gable, crow-stepped gable, or corbie step is a stairstep type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building. The top of the parapet wall projects above the roofline and the top of the brick or stone wall is stacked in ...
ped
bartizan
A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging turret projecting from the walls of late-medieval and early-modern fortifications from the early 14th c ...
ed section of an older date. The tower lay in disrepair until being purchased in 2001, and is now a private residence. It is a protected category B
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
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Frédéric Chopin
Johnstone Castle's principal claim to fame is a visit by the Polish composer Chopin in 1848. He had been invited by Anne Houston, wife of the then-5th laird of Johnstone Ludovick (1780-1862), as part of his Scottish tour. Anne's sister Jane Wilhelmina Stirling was a student and long-time friend of the composer, and had arranged the tour. Chopin was initially charmed by the estate and grounds, describing his stay in a letter: "I am staying at Mrs Houston's house. The Castle is very handsome, opulent, one leads life on a grand scale." Unfortunately the weather deteriorated, and he wrote to his friend Wojciech Grzymała:
The weather has changed, and it is dreadful outside. I am feeling sick and depressed, and everyone wears me down with their excessive attentions.
To compound his misery, he had a brush with a death more violent than a wasting. As the composer rode in a two-horse carriage, one of the animals reared and broke loose from the reins. Chopin was still inside when the carriage hit a tree and smashed into pieces. He managed to climb free of the wreckage.Zaluski (1993)