Scotland · Still standing
Kames Castle
Kames Castle is a historic Scottish tower house on the shore of Kames Bay on the Isle of Bute. The site includes an attached late-18th/early-19th mansion (since demolished and later replaced by cottages), an 18th‑century walled garden and planted estate grounds. The tower house and associated estate buildings are Category B listed.
Its prime
1800
Today
Still standing
As it stood in 1800
The shape it held in its prime.
A compact multi-storey stone tower house rising above a lower attached mansion block, all sited directly beside Kames Bay. The tower presents a vertical silhouette set against lower eaves and rooflines of the adjoining domestic range. Nearby is an enclosed 2-acre stone-walled garden opening onto planted lawns and specimen plantings across the 20-acre estate. At prime the main buildings stand complete and occupied, forming a courtyard between tower and mansion and facing the shore.
Its story
The story of Kames Castle.
The lands of Kames were granted to the Bannatyne family by Robert the Bruce in the 14th century, and the tower house on the shore of Kames Bay remained theirs for centuries. The last Bannatyne owner was Sir William Macleod Bannatyne, a distinguished Edinburgh lawyer and judge who took the title Lord Bannatyne on promotion to the College of Justice in 1799 — and, preferring his social life in Edinburgh, sold the estate around 1810 to James Hamilton WS.
Kames was the birthplace and early home of the critic and essayist John Sterling; Thomas Carlyle, in his biography of Sterling, called it "a kind of dilapidated baronial residence to which a small farm was then attached". Set in twenty acres of planted grounds with a two-acre 18th-century walled garden, the castle, its range of stone cottages and other estate buildings are Category B listed; it is now privately owned, with cottages available as holiday lets.
Step inside
6 places to explore in 1800.
The record describes 6 distinct spots at Kames Castle — including the full exterior approach. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and walk through every one — more scenes means more photos, more angles and more rooms of the immersive experience.
Create History
Recreate Kames Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1800 — a photoreal walk that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate Castle to Explore →Whose castle
Clans who held Kames Castle.
The families that held Kames Castle for a decade or more across its history — follow a name to its clan.
Bannatyne
Granted the lands of Kames by Robert the Bruce in the 14th century; held until Lord Bannatyne sold the estate around 1810.
Bought around 1810 by James Hamilton WS (1775–1849).
