Johnstone Castle

It's time for Castle of the Month.  I'm pleased to report that this morning I felt fit and able to embark on a castle hunt, and I achieved my aim of visiting Castle #1 in my list of preferred options.  As you'll see from the photos, it's a typical grey, bland day in the West of Scotland, and the images reflect this.  As castles go, this is probably my 'local': it's just a short drive away from my house.

Just after the war, a number of former estates were bought up by the state and turned into social housing schemes.  In many cases, like the infamous estates of Castle Milk and Ferguslie Park, the mansions were flattened and now survive only as memories and place names.  Johnstone Castle is the name given to an area now occupied by a similar social housing scheme, but it's unusual in that the council, in their wisdom, retained much of the building and used it as a storage depot from the late 1950s inwards.  Hence the surreal setting:-

 

Eagle-eyed fans of castellated architecture amongst you will note that there's something not quite right about this structure. The section to the left is a typical piece of Scots architecture, a solid-looking tower with crow-stepped gables and small defensive windows.  The section to the right just looks plain weird.  A bit Italianate, a bit Gothic, a bit mucked around.
 

The original tower was extended and incorporated into a much larger mansion in the early 19th century, probably by the then-laird, Ludovic Houston, who made his fortune  as an industrialist in Johnstone.  He bought an earlier castle, Easter Cochrane Castle, once owned by the Cochranes of that ilk, and extensively reworked, and to quote Historic Scotland, 'gothicised' it.

The mansion has since been demolished, leaving the original core behind.  Historic Scotland, in their Listed Buildings Register entry, don't commit to an original date for the structure, apart from citing a date of 1700 on a sundial incorporated into one of the walls   My gut feeling is that this structure has its origins in the late 16th century, judging by the crow-stepping and also the cable moulding on a recess which would once have held an armorial panel:-
 

 

It is possible,however, that the original structure may even have been older still. 

The upper level of this structure, including the bartisan (the pepper-pot tower) also appear to be later additons.  The arched windows give it away somewhat, too, but it's likely that the small windows, where they survive, are early features:-
 

 

Sorry about the wiggly photo - J and I spent ages pondering whether it was my photography or the castle itself  that was wonky.  We finally concluded that it was a combination of the two...

And now the good news...  You've probably noticed that the poor old thing looks a bit like a building site.  Well, it is.  The Council did their usual thing a few years back and sold it off for a pound,  Often, such enterprises end in disaster, but while progress has been very slow in this instance, the building looks in a lot better shape than it has been.  Fingers crossed its new owners can continue their good work and , slowly but surely, nurse it back to its former glory.  Amongst the new works are a rather fetching barmkin wall made out of breeze-blocks, which looks a bit daft just now, but once it's harled (as I presume it will be, eventually) will look much the same as the earlier fabric.

And the musical connection?  Evidently Frederic Chopin once stayed there for a month, at the invitation of Ludovic Houston.  Unfortunately, it's just wishful thinking to claim that the inclement autumnal climate of the West of Scotland inspired his marvellous piano work, 'The Raindrop Prelude'...   It's also said that on quiet nights, you can still hear the ghostly sound of piano music drifting out on the breeze from the castle walls.  [NB: if  I were as widely travelled as Frederic Chopin, I could think of better places to while away my afterlife....]

So there you have it.  It's not exactly Eilean Donan or Stirling, but it's got plenty going for it. A castle in an incongruous setting, a building that was nearly obliterated in the Great Castle Cleansing Frenzy of the 1950s but which lived to fight another day, a bit of Culture, and a ghost story!  What more could you possibly want?

 

Johnstone Castle

It's time for Castle of the Month.  I'm pleased to report that this morning I felt fit and able to embark on a castle hunt, and I achieved my aim of visiting Castle #1 in my list of preferred options.  As you'll see from the photos, it's a typical grey, bland day in the West of Scotland, and the images reflect this.  As castles go, this is probably my 'local': it's just a short drive away from my house.

Just after the war, a number of former estates were bought up by the state and turned into social housing schemes.  In many cases, like the infamous estates of Castle Milk and Ferguslie Park, the mansions were flattened and now survive only as memories and place names.  Johnstone Castle is the name given to an area now occupied by a similar social housing scheme, but it's unusual in that the council, in their wisdom, retained much of the building and used it as a storage depot from the late 1950s inwards.  Hence the surreal setting:-

 

Eagle-eyed fans of castellated architecture amongst you will note that there's something not quite right about this structure. The section to the left is a typical piece of Scots architecture, a solid-looking tower with crow-stepped gables and small defensive windows.  The section to the right just looks plain weird.  A bit Italianate, a bit Gothic, a bit mucked around.
 

The original tower was extended and incorporated into a much larger mansion in the early 19th century, probably by the then-laird, Ludovic Houston, who made his fortune  as an industrialist in Johnstone.  He bought an earlier castle, Easter Cochrane Castle, once owned by the Cochranes of that ilk, and extensively reworked, and to quote Historic Scotland, 'gothicised' it.

The mansion has since been demolished, leaving the original core behind.  Historic Scotland, in their Listed Buildings Register entry, don't commit to an original date for the structure, apart from citing a date of 1700 on a sundial incorporated into one of the walls   My gut feeling is that this structure has its origins in the late 16th century, judging by the crow-stepping and also the cable moulding on a recess which would once have held an armorial panel:-
 

 

It is possible,however, that the original structure may even have been older still. 

The upper level of this structure, including the bartisan (the pepper-pot tower) also appear to be later additons.  The arched windows give it away somewhat, too, but it's likely that the small windows, where they survive, are early features:-
 

 

Sorry about the wiggly photo - J and I spent ages pondering whether it was my photography or the castle itself  that was wonky.  We finally concluded that it was a combination of the two...

And now the good news...  You've probably noticed that the poor old thing looks a bit like a building site.  Well, it is.  The Council did their usual thing a few years back and sold it off for a pound,  Often, such enterprises end in disaster, but while progress has been very slow in this instance, the building looks in a lot better shape than it has been.  Fingers crossed its new owners can continue their good work and , slowly but surely, nurse it back to its former glory.  Amongst the new works are a rather fetching barmkin wall made out of breeze-blocks, which looks a bit daft just now, but once it's harled (as I presume it will be, eventually) will look much the same as the earlier fabric.

And the musical connection?  Evidently Frederic Chopin once stayed there for a month, at the invitation of Ludovic Houston.  Unfortunately, it's just wishful thinking to claim that the inclement autumnal climate of the West of Scotland inspired his marvellous piano work, 'The Raindrop Prelude'...   It's also said that on quiet nights, you can still hear the ghostly sound of piano music drifting out on the breeze from the castle walls.  [NB: if  I were as widely travelled as Frederic Chopin, I could think of better places to while away my afterlife....]

So there you have it.  It's not exactly Eilean Donan or Stirling, but it's got plenty going for it. A castle in an incongruous setting, a building that was nearly obliterated in the Great Castle Cleansing Frenzy of the 1950s but which lived to fight another day, a bit of Culture, and a ghost story!  What more could you possibly want?

 

(no subject)

You can tell it's the run-up to the Great Garden Birdwatch.  Things have just kicked off into madness in the garden.

I went out to the kitchen to make a coffee, and witnessed a scene of pandemonium.  A male sparrowhawk swooped in like a malevolent grey ghost, and harried next door's birdtable.  There were shrieks and wails and all sorts of cacophony: I watched, heart in mouth, hoping none of my birds would end up as a sparrowhawk's dinner, but being well aware that the poor old raptor needs to live, so unwilling to intervene in Nature's Grand Plan.  I am, quite frankly, honoured, that such a magnificent avian super-predator deigns to visit the garden. (And besides, something needs to keep the feral pigeons under control).

The sparrowhawk failed in his mission.  He sat on the fence, looking disgruntled.  He inspected the fat bar with disdain.  He hopped along the fence, then dropped into the flower bed next to the patio, where he stalked along, glaring at the ground as if finding it hard to believe that he could have made such a dog's dinner of his hunting.  At this point, I edged my way gingerly into the dining room and managed to get within a couple of feet of him without spooking him.  I didn't take a photo, I'm afraid - it's nearly dark and it would never have worked through the glass.

He then retreated to the beech hedge at the rear of the garden, sulking. 

Better luck next time, mate.  And at least his presence gets the local cats off the hook.  J always blames them for the carnage...

Did anyone else catch The Tudors last night?  I tolerated the first couple of series but last night I seriously lost it.  JRM as an aging Henry VIII  has stretched the bounds of credibility to breaking point, and, hey, if I was married to the simpering airhead that was Katherine Howard, I'd soon be cutting off her head, too. 

My increasing intolerance is all Hilary Mantel's fault.  Wolf Hall paints a far more convincing picture of life in the court of Henry VIII.  J agrees with that, too - he really disliked Wolf Hall at first, saying it was like watching a DVD set on fast forward and once describing it as 'briliiantly unintelligible', before conceding at the end that it had been well worth the read (Fans of Pillars of the Earth please take note: he much prefers Ken Follett!!).  But it was all thanks to Hilary Mantel that I found one saving grace in The Tudors.  It was a moment of epiphany, of illumination, when I blurted out in the middle of the programme, "Oh my God!  So THAT's 'Call Me Risley!"

Go read Wolf Hall, and you'll see what I mean!

 

(no subject)

You can tell it's the run-up to the Great Garden Birdwatch.  Things have just kicked off into madness in the garden.

I went out to the kitchen to make a coffee, and witnessed a scene of pandemonium.  A male sparrowhawk swooped in like a malevolent grey ghost, and harried next door's birdtable.  There were shrieks and wails and all sorts of cacophony: I watched, heart in mouth, hoping none of my birds would end up as a sparrowhawk's dinner, but being well aware that the poor old raptor needs to live, so unwilling to intervene in Nature's Grand Plan.  I am, quite frankly, honoured, that such a magnificent avian super-predator deigns to visit the garden. (And besides, something needs to keep the feral pigeons under control).

The sparrowhawk failed in his mission.  He sat on the fence, looking disgruntled.  He inspected the fat bar with disdain.  He hopped along the fence, then dropped into the flower bed next to the patio, where he stalked along, glaring at the ground as if finding it hard to believe that he could have made such a dog's dinner of his hunting.  At this point, I edged my way gingerly into the dining room and managed to get within a couple of feet of him without spooking him.  I didn't take a photo, I'm afraid - it's nearly dark and it would never have worked through the glass.

He then retreated to the beech hedge at the rear of the garden, sulking. 

Better luck next time, mate.  And at least his presence gets the local cats off the hook.  J always blames them for the carnage...

Did anyone else catch The Tudors last night?  I tolerated the first couple of series but last night I seriously lost it.  JRM as an aging Henry VIII  has stretched the bounds of credibility to breaking point, and, hey, if I was married to the simpering airhead that was Katherine Howard, I'd soon be cutting off her head, too. 

My increasing intolerance is all Hilary Mantel's fault.  Wolf Hall paints a far more convincing picture of life in the court of Henry VIII.  J agrees with that, too - he really disliked Wolf Hall at first, saying it was like watching a DVD set on fast forward and once describing it as 'briliiantly unintelligible', before conceding at the end that it had been well worth the read (Fans of Pillars of the Earth please take note: he much prefers Ken Follett!!).  But it was all thanks to Hilary Mantel that I found one saving grace in The Tudors.  It was a moment of epiphany, of illumination, when I blurted out in the middle of the programme, "Oh my God!  So THAT's 'Call Me Risley!"

Go read Wolf Hall, and you'll see what I mean!