Closeburn Castle

Closeburn Castle, a kilometre east of the village of Closeburn in Dumfriesshire, is a tower house probably of the 14th century — possibly older — and one of the oldest continually inhabited houses in Scotland. The Kirkpatrick family were confirmed in the lands of Closeburn by Alexander II in 1232, and held them for over five centuries.

The tower was built on a promontory in a loch, since drained, defended first by a timber palisade and later by a stone-walled barmkin with round towers at the corners. The tower itself rises 15 metres to a flush parapet, with a vaulted basement incorporating a prison, a vaulted hall above, and a first-floor entrance that still retains its iron yett — a defensive gate of metal bars.

The barmkin was presumably demolished to make way for a 17th-century manor, and when the family moved back into the tower in the mid-18th century the upper chambers were subdivided, windows enlarged and crenellations added to the parapet. The Kirkpatricks finally sold Closeburn in 1783 to a local minister, James Stewart-Menteith; the 19th-century additions, including a red sandstone porch, are possibly the work of the architect David Bryce.