Eglinton Castle

The Montgomeries' first holdings were the barony of Eaglesham and its castle of Polnoon, but Eglinton, just south of Kilwinning, became the family's seat. The earliest castle may have stood near Kidsneuk at Bogside, where a substantial earth mound survives and excavated pottery tentatively dates the site to the thirteenth century. Whatever stood on the later site was burnt by the Earl of Glencairn in 1528.

The older castle at Eglinton was described in about 1563-1566 as "a fare castell, but noo strength againsts any power".

In the 1640s Montrose sent Alasdair Mac Colla into Ayrshire to break support for the Covenanting cause. He plundered the countryside for some days and then demanded money. Three Eglinton tenants had already been killed, and deer and sheep taken from the park, by the time Neil Montgomery of Lainshaw negotiated a penalty of 4,000 merks for the estates.

Anne, Countess of Eglinton, daughter of the 1st Earl of Linlithgow, made the castle a refuge for persecuted ministers, and in the persecution of 1622 the earl had David Duckson, the banished minister of Irvine, restored to his charge; W. Hole's painting shows the earl of the day among the crowd in Greyfriars kirkyard in 1638, moments before he signed the National Covenant. After the Restoration the family were compensated for their losses in the Great Rebellion with Cromwell's citadel at Ayr, built in 1652 out of stone taken from the earl's own castle at Ardrossan, which was renamed Montgomerystown and made a burgh of regality. The hearth tax of 1691 counted twenty-five hearths at Eglinton, the highest for any single dwelling in Ayrshire, and noted that the earl had not paid it.

In 1784 the Easter Chambers at Kilwinning - the old abbot's lodging, later a Montgomerie dwelling of fifteen hearths - were pulled down over four months and the stone carted to Eglinton for the stables. The new castle followed. Its foundation stone was laid in 1797, the 12th Earl taking care that the ceremony was performed by Alexander Hamilton of Grange, grandfather of the American Alexander Hamilton. Finished in 1802, it was Gothic and castellated, a central round keep of 100 feet with four outer towers of 70, and reckoned second only to Culzean in appearance and grandeur.

Not everyone welcomed it: Fullarton mourned "the hoary grandeur of the old fortalice", buried in groves that no project of improvement had ever been allowed to disturb. The estate that paid for it ran to 34,716 Scots acres in 1788, taking in Little Cumbrae, Southannan and the old Montgomerie lands at Eaglesham. William Aiton recorded in 1811 that towards the end of each June the earl held three days of racing at Bogside and afterwards gave a grand ball and supper at the castle.

The 13th Earl's medieval tournament of 1839 made Eglinton famous and then ridiculous. The expense of the preparations became news across Scotland, and the railway line was opened ahead of its official opening to ferry guests to the castle. Then, in high summer, torrential rain washed the proceedings out, the competitors in full period dress gamely attempting to joust through it. Among them was Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the future Emperor Napoleon III.

The earl kept building for sport. The rackets court raised shortly after the tournament, its first recorded match in 1846 and its floor laid in large granite slabs, is the oldest surviving court in the world and the oldest indoor sports building in Scotland.

The cost of upkeep, the poor condition of the building and death duties settled the question. The family moved to Skelmorlie Castle near Largs in 1925 and the castle was abandoned. Dowell's sold the contents that December, 1,960 lots raising 7,004 pounds 19s 6d, and with them much of the Montgomerie past: the 13th Earl's tournament armour, the panel from the door of the murdered 10th Earl's coach, the portrait of Susanna Kennedy, Countess of Eglinton, and the chair built from the oak timbers of Alloway kirk whose back carried a brass plaque bearing the whole of Burns's Tam o' Shanter.

The roof came off in 1926 and the lead was sold. Progressively ruinous thereafter, the building came to an undignified end in the Second World War, seriously damaged by army training held on the estate, which also partly destroyed the iron bridge running to the old walled gardens. Substantial remains still stood after the war, but in 1973 they were rationalised down to a single main tower with a wing facade, some outer wall and foundations.