Culcreuch Castle is a Scottish castle close to the village of

Fintry Fintry is a small riverside village in Stirlingshire, central Scotland. It is located south-west of Stirling and around north of Glasgow. Landscape The village of Fintry sits by the Endrick Water in a strath between the Campsie Fells and the ...

, near

Loch Lomond Loch Lomond (; ) is a freshwater Scottish loch which crosses the Highland Boundary Fault (HBF), often considered the boundary between the lowlands of Central Scotland and the Highlands.Tom Weir. ''The Scottish Lochs''. pp. 33-43. Published by ...

. It had been the home of the Barons of Culcreuch since 1699. In the 1980s the castle was converted into a hotel, which it was run as until early 2020 when it was closed to the public by the American owners thus ending over 700 years of history. It had been until January 2020 one of the longest continually inhabited Castles in Central Scotland.

History

Culcreuch Castle was built in 1296 by Maurice Galbraith. It was the clan seat of Clan Galbraith from 1320 to 1624, when it was sold to a cousin, Alexander Seton of Gargunnock, to settle a financial debt. In 1632, it was purchased by Robert Napier, a younger son of John Napier, the 8th Laird of Merchiston. The Napier family held the estate for five generations. The castle was used to garrison Oliver Cromwell’s troops in 1654. In 1796, the castle was sold to Alexander Spiers of

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 ...

, who built a cotton mill and a distillery in

. It was sold in 1890 to J. C. Dunwaters, then again in 1901 to Walter Menzies. It passed into the hands of Hercules Robinson in the 1970s, the last of that line of the Menzies family. It was sold in 1984 to Arthur Haslam, who operated the castle as a hotel. In 2007, ownership was transferred to a holding company in Los Angeles, who took the decision to close the castle and business in 2020 ending over 700 years of continuous habitation.

Design

Culcreuch is a rectangular

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points ...

, with three stories and an attic, topped by a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

and slate roof. The north and east extensions to the original tower were built after 1721 by the Napiers, and match the original tower.

References

External links

Official site

{{Coord, 56.06193, -4.21904, type:landmark_region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(NS6193287675), display=title Castles in Stirling (council area) Category A listed buildings in Stirling (council area) Listed castles in Scotland Clan Napier