Castle Kennedy

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Castle Kennedy
Wigtownshire

Castle Kennedy by Francis Grose (1789)
Location
Location: 54°53’47"N, 4°57’6"W
Data
Post town: Stranraer
Postcode: DG9
Dialling code: 01776
Local Government
Council: Dumfries and Galloway
Parliamentary
constituency:
Dumfries and Galloway

Castle Kennedy is a village three miles east of Stranraer in the parish of Inch in Wigtownshire.

Before the Reformation the two lochs, Black Loch and White Loch, were together known as Loch Crindil or Crindill. A small island in the White Loch (named Innysmacrinyl in 1415) gave the parish the name 'the Inch or Inche or Insche', which is the Gaelic innis, meaning 'island'.

Castles

Castle Kennedy

The village is well named for there is a castle here - indeed there are two. Castle Kennedy itself, built in 1607, was burned down in 1716 and remains a ruin to this day.

The owners decided to build Lochinch Castle in 1864 as a replacement rather than restoring the old castle.[1]

The grounds of the castle, which were laid out in the 1730s by John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair,[1] are open to the public. Because of the Gulf Stream and the proximity of the sea on two sides, the gardens enjoy a mild climate which permits the cultivation of rhododendrons and other plants not often seen in these northern latitudes.

Francis Grose's Antiquities of Scotland of 1789 contains a drawing of the ruins as they were then, of old "Castle Kenedy, September 15 1789".[2]

Outside links

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 "Castle Kennedy". Visit Stranraer and the Rhins. http://www.visitstranraerandtherhins.co.uk/castle-kennedy.html. Retrieved 10 May 2012. 
  2. Antiquities of Scotland. vol.2. Galloway. Wigtonshire. pub. by J. Hooper c.1789-1791, pp.190-191