Dundonald Castle
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Dundonald Castle is situated on a hill overlooking the village of Dundonald, between
Kilmarnock Kilmarnock ( ; ; , ), meaning "the church of Mernóc", is a town and former burgh in East Ayrshire situated in southwest Scotland. The town has served as the administrative centre of East Ayrshire Council since 1996 and is the region's main ...
and
Troon Troon (Scottish Gaelic: ''An Truthail'') is a town and sea port in South Ayrshire, situated on the west coast of Ayrshire in Scotland, about north of Ayr and northwest of Glasgow Prestwick Airport. Troon has a port with ferry and freight serv ...
in
South Ayrshire South Ayrshire (; , ) is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland, covering the southern part of Ayrshire. It borders onto Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire. South Ayrshire had an estimated population in 2021 of 112,45 ...
,
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 ...
. Dundonald Castle is a fortified
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 ...
built for Robert II on his accession to the throne of Scotland in 1371 and it was used as a royal residence by Robert II and his son Robert III.


History


Dark age hill fort

The present castle stands on land where evidence suggests there was a
hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...
. It is thought that a mixture of large timber-built roundhouse and straight-sided structures occupied the interior. A timber-laced stone rampart defined and defended the fort. The timber lacing caught fire and burnt with such intensity that the surrounding stonework melted, or
vitrified Vitrification (, via French ') is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, that is to say, a non- crystalline or amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses possess a higher degree of connectivity ...
. This firing happened about 1000 AD and seems to mark the end of the hill-fort’s existence. It was about this date that the British
Kingdom of Strathclyde Strathclyde (, "valley of the River Clyde, Clyde"), also known as Cumbria, was a Celtic Britons, Brittonic kingdom in northern Britain during the Scotland in the Middle Ages, Middle Ages. It comprised parts of what is now southern Scotland an ...
ceased to exist, being absorbed into the
Kingdom of Scotland The Kingdom of Scotland was a sovereign state in northwest Europe, traditionally said to have been founded in 843. Its territories expanded and shrank, but it came to occupy the northern third of the island of Great Britain, sharing a Anglo-Sc ...
. The place name Dundonald means "fort of Donald". It appears to be derived from the
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
*''Din Dyfnwal'' (the British
personal name A personal name, full name or prosoponym (from Ancient Greek ''prósōpon'' – person, and ''onoma'' –name) is the set of names by which an individual person or animal is known. When taken together as a word-group, they all relate to that on ...
''Dyfnwal'' is cognate to the
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
''Dòmhnall'' and English ''Donald''). The eponym of the fortress is unknown, although he may have been any of the numerous kings of Alt Clut/Strathclyde who bore the name ''Dyfnwal'' from the eighth century to the tenth century.


Early castles

There have been three
medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...
castles present on this site. The first was built by one of the stewards of the king of Scots, most probably
Walter Walter may refer to: People and fictional characters * Walter (name), including a list of people and fictional and mythical characters with the given name or surname * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–19 ...
, the first steward, who came to Scotland in 1136. There is no surviving evidence of this castle above ground today. The second castle was built in the late 13th century by Alexander Stewart, 4th High Steward, this castle was predominantly built of stone. It would have been one of the grandest baronial residences of its time. It was largely destroyed by the Scottish during the
Wars of Scottish Independence The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and 14th centuries. The First War (1296–1328) began with the English invasion of Scotla ...
in the early 14th century. King Robert the Bruce's policy was to slight (demolish) most castles so they could not be used by enemies including much greater castles than Dundonald, such as
Edinburgh Castle Edinburgh Castle is a historic castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. It stands on Castle Rock (Edinburgh), Castle Rock, which has been occupied by humans since at least the Iron Age. There has been a royal castle on the rock since the reign of Malcol ...
and
Roxburgh Castle Roxburgh Castle is a ruined royal castle that overlooks the junction of the rivers Tweed and Teviot, in the Borders region of Scotland. The town and castle developed into the royal burgh of Roxburgh, which the Scots destroyed along with ...
. There is little remaining of this castle, however there is a well and a rounded stump of a tower near to the present.


The present castle

The third castle was built by Robert Stewart, probably to mark his accession to the throne as Robert II in 1371. It was three storeys high. The top floor above the lofty stone vault was the upper hall – the
great hall A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages. It continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great cha ...
. It was for the more private use of the king and family. The first floor was the lower of the two halls – the laigh hall. It would have been used for more public activities like feasting and the holding of the baron court. The ground floor was a storage area. It was probably originally subdivided providing cellars for different commodities like wine, ale, foodstuffs and fuel. The tower house was extended in the late 14th century to add additional private chambers and a prison. The outer courtyard (called more properly the barmkin) was completed and ancillary buildings (stables, bakehouses, brewhouses, smithy, etc.) built against the barmkin wall. The third castle comprised almost everything that is visible above ground today, including the tower which dominates the hill. Dundonald castle once had its own chapel dedicated to Saint Inan.


Auchens House

By 1520 the castle was in the possession of the Wallaces of Craigie. In 1536 King
James V James V (10 April 1512 – 14 December 1542) was List of Scottish monarchs, King of Scotland from 9 September 1513 until his death in 1542. He was crowned on 21 September 1513 at the age of seventeen months. James was the son of King James IV a ...
granted the castle and its estates to Robert Boyd, but he was unable to gain possession and, after a second, failed attempt at eviction, Boyd ceded control to the Wallace family. A century later, debt forced the Wallaces to sell the castle in 1632, although by that time the family had moved its main residence to Auchens House, which they had built in the 1580s, in part with materials removed from Dundonald. The buyer was James Mathieson. He sold out to Sir William Cochrane in 1638, when Cochrane also bought Auchens House. In 1669 Cochrane was created the first
Earl of Dundonald Earl of Dundonald is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1669 for the Scottish soldier and politician William Cochrane, 1st Lord Cochrane of Dundonald, along with the subsidiary title of Lord Cochrane of Paisley and Ochiltr ...
for his support to the Royalist cause in the
Wars of the Three Kingdoms The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, then separate entities in a personal union un ...
. In 1726 the Cochranes sold their Dundonald estate but retained possession of the ruined castle. In 1953 the 13th Earl gave the castle to the state which began a programme of reconstruction.


The castle today

There is a visitor centre at the foot of the hill, which includes a cafe, souvenir shop and an interpretive exhibition. The exhibition outlines the history of the castle and its preceding buildings with detailed models of the earlier castles on the site. The visitor centre is owned by South Ayrshire Council and the castle is owned by
Historic Scotland Historic Scotland () was an executive agency of the Scottish Government, executive agency of the Scottish Office and later the Scottish Government from 1991 to 2015, responsible for safeguarding Scotland's built heritage and promoting its und ...
. Both the castle and the visitor centre are operated by the Friends of Dundonald Castle. The castle was made a
scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...
in 1920 and the schedule was updated in 2017. A ley tunnel is said to run from Seagate Castle in Irvine to Dundonald Castle.


Archaeology

Minor archaeological investigations took place at Dundonald in the 1960s. These established that the rubble base was up to 4 feet in depth and rested on bedrock, which had been deliberately levelled with stones to form a cobbled surface. The curtain wall of the inner courtyard was shown to have been butted on to the keep, and rested on bedrock without any footings. The keep would seem to be resting on ashlar footings or underpinnings, a single course projecting in front of the castle wall. Part of this was pointed with mortar of nineteenth century date, probably contemporary with the consolidation work carried out at that period. There were no significant finds. Three main seasons of archaeological excavation were completed between 1986 and 1988, in advance of a programme of conservation. Subsequently a series of smaller-scale excavations were undertaken finishing in 1993. These excavations were led by Gordon Ewart (Kirkdale Archaeology) and focussed on the area within the barmkin enclosure of the present castle. They discovered material indicating multiple periods of occupation, dating back to the Bronze Age. The material discovered relates to: *Charcoal-rich layers, possibly
Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
. *
Kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...
-like structures and a scatter of
Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
pottery fragments, the disturbance of which suggests successive phases of a permanent settlement. *Grains including
emmer wheat Emmer is a hybrid species of wheat, producing edible seeds that have been used as food since ancient times. The domesticated types are ''Triticum turgidum'' subsp. ''dicoccum'' and ''T. t. ''conv.'' durum''. The wild plant is called ''T. t.'' s ...
, which can be present at sites from the Neolithic through to the
Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
. *Iron Age Hillfort with several large wooden roundhouses and a fragment of palisade on the lower terrace to the north of the exposed drystone circuit. Successive building on each of the house sites shows an extended period of occupation. *
Shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...
or
lignite Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered the lowest ...
bracelets and glass beads suggest the settlement continued to the 4th and 5th centuries AD. In 2017-18
Historic Environment Scotland Historic Environment Scotland (HES) () is an executive non-departmental public body responsible for investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment. HES was formed in 2015 from the merger of government agency Historic Sc ...
(HES) worked in partnership with the Friends of Dundonald Castle on proposals to raise public awareness of the castle as part of the Dundonald Heritage Project. It was hoped that new evaluation would shed valuable light on the development of the site through time, as well as providing a catalyst for continuing local community engagement. The investigation consisted of a geophysical survey (
resistivity Electrical resistivity (also called volume resistivity or specific electrical resistance) is a fundamental specific property of a material that measures its electrical resistance or how strongly it resists electric current. A low resistivity i ...
, gradiometry and
ground-penetrating radar Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. It is a non-intrusive method of surveying the sub-surface to investigate underground utilities such as concrete, asphalt, metals, pipes, cables ...
) performed by Rose Geophysics in early 2017, with subsequent public engagement events during Archaeology Month (September). This was followed by a series of excavations, including public engagement, carried out in August 2018 by HES Cultural Resources Team archaeologists along with CFA Archaeology.


Legend

The following extract alludes to an old Scottish folktale about the construction and origins of Dundonald Castle:
In Ayrshire there is an unknown rhyme that is probably very old: Donald Din Built his house without a pin, alluding to Dundonald Castle, the ancient seat of King Robert II, and now the last remaining property in Ayrshire of the noble family who take their title from it. According to tradition, it was built by a hero named Donald Din, or Din Donald, and constructed entirely of stone, without the use of wood, a supposition countenanced by the appearance of the building, which consists of three distinct stories, arched over with strong stonework, the roof of one forming the floor of another. Donald, the builder, was originally a poor man, but had the faculty of dreaming lucking dreams. Upon one occasion he dreamed, thrice in one night, that if he were to go to
London Bridge The name "London Bridge" refers to several historic crossings that have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark in central London since Roman Britain, Roman times. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 197 ...
, he would become a wealthy man. He went accordingly, saw a man looking over the parapet of the bridge, whom he accosted courteously, and, after a little conversation, entrusted with the secret of the occasion of his coming to London Bridge. The stranger told him that he had made a very foolish errand, for he himself had once had a similar vision, which directed him to go to a certain spot in Ayrshire, in Scotland, where he would find a vast treasure, and, for his part, he had never once thought of obeying the injunction. From his description of the spot, the sly Scotsman at once perceived that the treasure in question must be concealed in no other place than his own humble kail-yard abbage patchat home, to which he immediately repaired, in full expectation of finding it. Nor was he disappointed; for, after destroying many good and promising cabbages, and completely cracking credit with his wife, who esteemed him mad, he found a large potful of gold coin, with the proceeds of which he built a stout castle for himself, and became the founder of a flourishing family.


Legend origins

Similar legends can be found throughout Europe and the Middle-East. The earliest version is one of the poems of the Mathanawi titled ''"In Baghdad, Dreaming of Cairo: In Cairo, Dreaming of Baghdad"'', by 13th century Persian poet Jalal al-Din Rumi;. This poem was turned into a story in the tale from The
One Thousand and One Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition ( ...
: ''The man who became rich through a dream''; and spread through various countries folklore, children's tales and literature. More recently the story was adapted into the plot of the novel The Alchemist by
Paulo Coelho Paulo Coelho de Souza ( , ; born 24 August 1947) is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters since 2002. His 1988 novel '' The Alchemist'' became an international best-seller. Early life Paulo Coelho ...
.


In popular culture

Dundonald Castle features in the Jules Verne novel ''The Underground City''.''The Underground City''- Jules Verne, 1877, Paris The castle is used as a beacon to drive ships into the coast, where the beacon lighters can then steal the cargo of the stricken ship. Within the novel, the castle is also linked to an underground city beneath Loch Katrine via a tunnel, perhaps adding to the common myth of the ley tunnel.


Images

File:Dundonald Castle Visitor Centre - Castle model.jpg File:2017-08-15 Dundonald Castle.jpg File:Dundonald Castle - geograph.org.uk - 39815.jpg


References


Sources

*


External links


Dundonald Castle home page
*Historic Environment Scotland
Visitor guide

DigIt! YouTube video Dundonald Castle
{{Castles in South Ayrshire Castles in South Ayrshire Scheduled monuments in South Ayrshire Listed castles in Scotland Historic house museums in South Ayrshire Historic Environment Scotland properties in South Ayrshire Clan Cochrane Royal residences in Scotland