Kelburn Castle

The Boyle family have held the lands of Kelburn, near Fairlie in North Ayrshire, since the 12th century. The first structure on the site was a wooden tower, replaced in the 1200s by a stone Norman keep, sections of which are still in use and which forms the core of the house. No one knows the date of the first stone laid, but the castle was there in 1263, the year of the Battle of Largs, fought between the Scots and the Norwegians.

In the late 16th century a tower house was built, replacing an earlier structure and perhaps taking parts of its masonry into the eastern side. Orchards and gardens are recorded at Kelburn in the 17th century.

David Boyle (1666–1733) sat in the Parliament of Scotland and was created Earl of Glasgow in 1703. Extensions made to the house in 1700 gave it a manner not unlike a French château, which is virtually how it appears today. The first Earl began the new north-west wing, completed around 1722, and doubled the size of the building by adding a William-and-Mary style mansion house onto the castle at a slight angle, built to his instructions by the well-known mason Thomson Caldwell.

George Boyle, 6th Earl of Glasgow (1825–1890), added the north-east wing in 1880. The 7th Earl was made Governor of New Zealand in 1892, and it is through him that the estate is linked to Kelburn in New Zealand; many of his souvenirs remain at the castle and in the estate's museum.

Kelburn has been protected as a category A listed building since April 1971, and the grounds are included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland. It was the decision of Patrick Boyle, 10th Earl of Glasgow, to open the estate to the public in 1977, turning the grounds and ancillary buildings into outdoor recreation areas, a café and a gift shop and admitting visitors to the interior on guided tours; the estate buildings and stables were converted in 1980 to provide a tea room, shop and visitor information. The Earl and his family live in the castle still; it has been continuously inhabited by the same family for longer than any other in Scotland.

An electrical fault started a fire on 16 February 2009. Flames engulfed a top-floor room and spread to the roof, and around 25 firefighters fought the blaze from about 1:45 am until it was extinguished at about 7:20 am; the damage was minor.

In 2007 experts told the owners that the castle's concrete facing would eventually need replacing to avoid further damage to the stonework. At the suggestion of his children, Lord Glasgow invited four Brazilian graffiti artists — Nunca, Nina and the Os Gêmeos twins — to paint the walls, and Historic Scotland agreed to the project on the basis that the graffiti would be removed when the castle was re-harled. The painting was featured on the BBC programme The Culture Show; another BBC programme the same year, Crisis at the Castle, documented the financial problems of running the castle.

Reports in September 2010 that Historic Scotland was putting pressure on Lord Glasgow to remove the graffiti were later denied by both parties. In August 2011 it was reported that the Earl had written formally to Historic Scotland asking permission to keep it as a permanent feature.