endlessrarities | A Little Piece of Maybole (Reply)

The town of Maybole was one of our destinations on our recent Doors Open Day tour of South Ayrshire. It has a long history - it was erected a Burgh of Barony in 1516, in the reign of King James V (in his minority, even!).

It's always been strongly linked with the Kenney family. Maybole Collegiate Church was endowed by the Kennedies - unfortunately, I was too sore to go exploring there after the Goat Fell Extravaganza, and even though it's a Guardianship Monument, it's always locked up. Only the local neds are capable of scaling its not very extensive walls - it's probably being vandalised into oblivion as I write this!

Our destination in Maybole was Maybole Castle. It's another Kennedy edice, which was used as the townhouse of the Earls of Cassilis in the 16th century.

Here's a view of the castle, which sits in the middle of the town:-

The oriel window in the upper storey's particularly fine.

The main sixteenth century structure was extended in the 'Jacobethan' style. It's peculiarly Scots, with its crow-stepped gables and strapwork embellishments:-

The low section to the right was built in the early nineteenth century. The interior of the castle was reworked at the same time. I don't know the identity of the architect, but the style is very reminiscent of Thomas Hamilton, an Edinburgh architect who was reponsible for similar buildings at a similar point in time. He was very active in Ayrshire - my first building survey job was at Dunlop House, which was one of his projects, and the similarity with Maybole Castle is striking...

Here's a detail of the ornate strapwork over the windows and doorways in the nineteenth century portion of the structure:-