Orchardton Castle

Orchardton Castle
Orchardton Castle viewed from the North West
Orchardton Castle
Coordinates 54°51′33″N 3°51′15″W / 54.859222°N 3.854173°W / 54.859222; -3.854173

Orchardton Castle is a Scottish Baronial-style stone castle located in Auchencairn in Kirkcudbrightshire, Dumfries and Galloway in Southwest Scotland. It overlooks the Solway Firth, with views to Cumbria and Hestan Island.

History

The current castle was built by William Douglas Robinson-Douglas in the Scottish Baronial style in the 1880s, on the site of a small mansion dating from around 1769.

The 1769 house had been started by Sir Robert Maxwell, 7th Baronet of Orchardton, who married a MacLellan of MacLellan's Castle and used the roof timbers and stone from an earlier Orchardton Castle (now known as Orchardton Tower) to build a new house in a better location near the sea. However the work bankrupted him and in 1786 the estate came under the ownership of James Douglas, a Liverpool merchant, and eventually passed down into the hands of William Douglas Robinson-Douglas, who started to rebuild the present castle in 1878. [1]

In 1944 the castle was turned into a military hospital for wounded officers and into a hotel after the war. The property was sold in 1951 but remained in use as an hotel until 1960. Between 1960 and 1981, it was a school and thereafter used for residential courses and conferences and housing for artists. Sold again in 2003 to Susan DeVere[2], it was renovated over the next two years, including the installation of central heating and renewal of the electric wiring.

The owners fell prey to a con artist while trying to sell the castle in 2012 and spent the next three and a half years sorting everything out. The property remained on the market in 2016 for 2m pounds.

In late 2017, the owners offered the castle for sale in a lottery with £5 tickets. The drawing will take place on 18 May, 2018, with the winner to be given the castle plus £10,000.[3]

Castle

The castle has around 48 rooms, including 17 bedrooms and three flats, a cinema, libraries and an outside sauna.

There is a palm tree and many other rare tree and plant species in the garden and grounds, which stretch over 5 acres (2 hectares). The grounds are often visited by pheasants, deer and peacocks.

Sources

  • Paterson, George B L (1983). Orchardton House, Auchencairn, by Castle Douglas. University of Glasgow, Mackintosh School of Architecture: University of Glasgow.

References

  1. ↑ "Orchardton Tower, Castle and estate". The Douglas Archives. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
  2. ↑ "Writer bought castle for just £450k, but..." Scottish Mail on Sunday. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  3. ↑ https://winacastle.co.uk/
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