Dunans Castle is a historic structure located in Glendaruel, on the Cowal peninsula, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The property is owned by Charles and Sadie Dixon-Spain. A property at Dounens was shown on maps in 1590; Dunans House was elaborated into its present mock castle form in 1864. Once part of a much larger estate the property presently includes 16 acres (65,000 m2) of ground and in 2001 was ruined by fire.

For over two centuries Dunans was home to the Fletcher Clan who moved to the site between 1715 and 1745 carrying with them the door of their previous home at Achallader Castle (the door was used for the private chapel and was reported missing in 1999). The original mansion-style house (to the left in the picture) was extended into its present dramatic Franco-baronial "castle" form by the architect Andrew Kerr with the additions consisting of four main apartments and 6 bedrooms. The building passed out of Fletcher hands in 1997 when the entire 3000 acre Dunans estate was sold off by Colonel Archibald Fletcher's heirs and subsequently split up. Following a number of financial problems, the Category B listed castle was gutted by fire on 14 January 2001 while being run as a hotel and the building was left as a ruin. The fire began in the attic space of the castle section and destroyed three floors with only the pre Victorian west wing surviving undamaged. The owner Ewa Lucas-Gardener had ignored fire safety experts warnings that the building's fireplaces were unsafe and abandoned the building after the insurers refused to pay out. Now under new ownership, the site, including a Victorian path network, has undergone some restoration supported by the Dunans Charitable Trust. The castle was reported to have three resident ghosts.

Present day
Dunans Castle Limited, which runs the ScottishLaird.com website, published the Conservation Plan for Dunans in April 2014. Written by conservation architect Robin Kent, the book outlines the programme for the restoration of the castle and the bridge.

The regional blog ForArgyll.com is run from the site as is the Walking Theatre Company. The building remains in the at risk category of the buildings at risk register and is described as being in very poor condition.

Bridge and mausoleum
Leading to the castle is Dunans Bridge, an A-listed structure, designed by Thomas Telford in 1815 and constructed to commemorate the battle of Waterloo by John Fletcher.

Once part of the Dunans estate, but still in the ownership of the Fletchers is the Fletcher of Dunans Mausoleum, a grade C listed structure located in the gardens of the neighbouring Stronardron house.

Further buildings once part of the estate but now privately owned include Dunans Lodge, the original gate house to the estate and Dunans Cottage, 2 workers cottages combined into one dwelling.

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New Castle Lachlan, is an 18th-century baronial mansion or country house located at Strathlachlan, Cowal peninsula, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It was built in 1790 by Donald Maclachlan, 19th laird, to replace the 15th century Old Castle Lachlan, which stands nearby on the shores of Loch Fyne. The building is protected as a category C(S) listed building.

The building was remodelled around 1910 by the architect George Mackie Watson.

New Castle Lachlan

Kilmory Castle, also known as Kilmory House, is a large 19th-century house located just to the south of Lochgilphead, in Argyll, Argyll and Bute, on the west coast of Scotland. It is currently occupied by the headquarters of Argyll and Bute Council. The gardens are open to the public and form part of a country park on the former estate. The house is protected as a category B listed building.
There was a church at Kilmory in ancient times, and in the 1550s the church and lands of Kilmory were held by the Abbot of Paisley. In 1575 the estate was owned by Donald Campbell of Kilmory, and remained in the Campbell family for over 250 years. A house may have stood here as early as the 14th century. The Campbells built a house, or extended the existing one, in 1816–20. Eliza Campbell, the eldest daughter and co-heir of Peter Campbell, married Sir John Orde, 2nd Baronet in 1824. He purchased the estates following the death of his father in law in 1828 and of his wife in 1829. Orde demolished the modest old Campbell house and replaced it with a grand Gothic style mansion designed by architect Joseph Gordon Davis. The core of the older house was retained, but was extended into an L-plan, with new exterior and interior decoration, and a large octagonal tower at the south-west corner. Orde also greatly expanded and improved the grounds and estate, engaging William Hooker to extend the gardens in 1830. Further extensions were carried out in the 1860s.
Orde was buried in the private burial ground adjacent to the house in 1878. His son succeeded to the baronetcy, and changed his name to Campbell-Orde in 1880. The Campbell-Orde baronets retained the estate until 1938. It passed through several owners thereafter, and served variously as a hotel, hostel and conference centre.
In March 1949 an announcement was made that it would open in June as a national holiday centre for young people.
In July 1971 it was designated a category B listed building.
In 1974, Argyll County Council purchased the house to serve as a headquarters for Argyll and Bute District Council, which was formed in 1975. In 1995 local government was reorganised again, although Kilmory remained in use as the headquarters of the new Argyll and Bute unitary authority. An office block extension was built onto the house in 1980–82, to increase the provision of space. Fire damaged the main house the following year, and many interiors had to be refurbished.

Kilmory Castle

Inveraray Castle (Scottish Gaelic Caisteal Inbhir Aora, pronounced is a country house near Inveraray in the county of Argyll, in western Scotland, on the shore of Loch Fyne, Scotland’s longest sea loch.

It has been the seat of the Dukes of Argyll, chiefs of Clan Campbell, since the 18th century.

History and architecture
Work on the castle began in 1743 and replaced an earlier 15th-century castle. In October 1746 the foundation stone was laid. Built in Gothic Revival style, later additions included a third floor with dormer windows and steep conical roofs. The village of Inveraray was moved in the 1770s to give the castle a more secluded setting.

Designers who worked on the house include William Adam and Roger Morris; the interior includes a number of neoclassical rooms created for the 5th Duke by Robert Mylne. These are among the rooms open to the public. James Lees-Milne was not impressed by the house when he visited it in 1943, noting the "ugly" grey stone and calling it "grim and forbidding".

In 1975 a devastating fire struck Inveraray and for some time the 12th Duke and his family lived in the castle's basement, while restorations requiring a worldwide fundraising drive were carried out.

Modern era
The castle is open to visitors. Its collection includes more than 1,300 pikes, muskets, swords and other weapons.

The 13th Duke and his family live in private apartments occupying two floors and set between two of the castle's crenellated circular towers. Recent renovations included the installation of the house's first central heating.

Inveraray Castle is a Category A listed building. It is surrounded by a 16-acre (6.5 ha) garden and an estate of 60,000 acres (240 km2). Besides welcoming visitors to the castle, the estate's activities include commercial forestry, tenanted farming, wind and hydro power and deer hunting.

In popular culture
The 2012 Christmas episode of Downton Abbey was partly filmed here; the castle portraying the fictional "Duneagle Castle". Inveraray Castle also featured in a series on Scottish castles made by American broadcaster PBS. The "Best of the West" festival, organised by the Duchess, is held at the castle each September.

Inveraray Castle

Innes Chonnel Castle or Ardchonnel Castle is a ruined 13th-century castle on an island on Loch Awe near Dalavich, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It was once a stronghold of Clan Campbell.

The castle and the island are jointly a designated scheduled monument.

Innes Chonnel Castle

Kilmartin Castle is a small, formerly ruined, 16th-century Z-plan tower house. It consists of a main block of three storeys, with projecting round towers at opposite corners. A small stair-tower stands against one side of the main block. The walls are pierced by shot-holes, and the windows still have iron yetts.

The entrance leads to the vaulted basement, which contains three chambers, one the kitchen, linked by a passage. A turnpike stair climbs to all floors in one of the round towers. The hall, with a large fireplace, was on the first floor of the main block, and had an adjoining private chamber. There were more private rooms above the hall.

The castle is accurately depicted on Pont’s map of mid Argyll, along with the church.

The castle was the residence of John Carswell, who moved to Carnasserie Castle when made Protestant Bishop of the Isles. It had passed to the Campbells by 1674, and Alexander Campbell of Kilmartin is on record four years later. The lands were pillaged in 1685. Archibald Campbell of Kilmartin signed an oath of allegiance to George I in 1715. The Campbells held the castle until 1922.

Kilmartin House dated from around the middle of the 18th century, but this building has been demolished. It was owned by the Malcolms of Poltalloch, who later moved to Poltalloch House and then to Duntrune Castle.

Kilmartin Castle

Carnasserie Castle (also spelled Carnassarie) is a ruined 16th-century tower house, noted for its unusual plan and renaissance detailing.

The castle was built by reforming churchman John Carswell, who was Rector of Kilmartin, Chancellor of the Chapel Royal at Stirling, and later titular Bishop of the Isles. Carswell published the first book to be printed in Scottish Gaelic, a translation of John Knox's Book of Common Order. Construction began in 1565 using masons brought from Stirling; although notionally built for Carswell's patron, the Earl of Argyll, he intended it as a personal residence for himself.

On Carswell's death in 1572, the castle passed to the Earl of Argyll and sold in 1643 to Sir Dugald Campbell, 3rd Baronet of Auchinbreck. His successor Duncan Campbell was one of the few to actively support Argyll's Rising against James VII in 1685. The Atholl Raid that followed the failure of the Rising devastated large parts of Argyllshire; despite recovering his estates in 1689, Duncan Campbell was financially ruined. In 1690, he petitioned Parliament claiming Maclean clansmen burnt Carnasserie Castle, stole 2,000 cattle and murdered his uncle Alexander Campbell of Strondour. Although the outer walls remain largely undamaged, Carnasserie was never rebuilt and the Auchinbrecks eventually went bankrupt. In the 19th century the estate was sold to the Malcolms of Poltalloch, who also own nearby Duntrune Castle. Today the castle and its surroundings are protected as a scheduled monument. The castle is in the care of Historic Environment Scotland and is open to the public.

Architecture
Carnasserie has only ever been slightly altered, in the late 17th century, and so presents an accurate picture of 16th-century architecture. Although sited on raised ground close to a strategic pass at the head of Kilmartin Glen, it was designed more for domestic rather than military purposes.

The castle comprises a 5-storey tower house, with a longer three storey hall house, providing a substantial range of accommodation. At basement level are the remains of cellars and a kitchen with a large fireplace and water inlet. Above this is the large hall. This is connected to a large drawing room in the tower house, which retains its stone floor and large fireplace with finely carved stone decoration. A broad stair rises from the entrance to the hall, contained in a small tower to the north-west. A second smaller stair leads up from the hall to the parapet walk on three sides of the tower house. Upper rooms would have contained bedrooms.

The exterior displays numerous "double keyhole" gunloops, as well as decorative string courses and corbelling. Over the entrance are blank panels framed by carved supports, as well as the arms of the 5th Earl of Argyll with the Gaelic motto DIA LE UA NDUIBHNE, "God be with O'Duine", referring to the semi-legendary ancestors of Clan Campbell. At the top of the tower are the remains of open rounds along the parapet, and a caphouse above the stair. Fragments of carved drain spouts have been found, and are on display in the cellars.

To the south and west is a partially walled courtyard garden. An archway bears the inscription SDC LHL 1681, for Sir Duncan Campbell, 4th Baronet and Lady Henrietta Lindsay, whose support for Argyll's uprising led to the castle's destruction.

Carnasserie Castle

Kames Castle is located on the shore of Kames Bay near Port Bannatyne, on the Isle of Bute, Scotland. It consists of a 16th-century tower house, extended by the addition of a range of cottages. The castle is set in 20 acres (81,000 m2) of planted grounds, including a 2-acre (8,100 m2) 18th-century walled garden.

History
The lands of Kames were granted to the Bannatyne family by Robert the Bruce in the 14th century. Although of 14th-century appearance, the present tower house is thought to date from the 16th century. The last Bannatyne owner was Sir William Macleod Bannatyne (1743–1833), a distinguished lawyer and judge in Edinburgh, who took the title Lord Bannatyne on promotion to the College of Justice in 1799. In the later 18th and early 19th century he laid out the walled garden and constructed a mansion adjoining the tower house.

Kames was the birthplace and early home of the critic and essayist John Sterling (1806–1844). Thomas Carlyle in his biography of Sterling refers to the castle as "a kind of dilapidated baronial residence to which a small farm was then attached". Lord Bannatyne sold the estate around 1810, to James Hamilton WS, preferring his social life in Edinburgh. Kames Castle became part of the Marquess of Bute's estate in 1863. Some alterations to the tower house were undertaken in the later 19th century. Around 1900 the mansion was demolished and replaced with a series of cottages around a courtyard, with the intention of creating a hunting lodge.

In the mid to late 20th century, Kames was used as a children's home. It is now privately owned, with a number of cottages available as holiday lets. The castle, cottages, walled garden and other estate buildings are category B listed buildings.

Kames Castle

Castle Toward is a nineteenth-century country house on the southern tip of the Cowal peninsula, overlooking Rothesay Bay in Argyll and Bute on the west-coast of Scotland.

Built in 1820 by Glasgow merchant Kirkman Finlay, it replaced the late medieval Toward Castle, formerly the ancestral home of the Clan Lamont. It was greatly extended in the early 20th century, and in the Second World War it served as HMS Brontosaurus. After the war it was sold to Glasgow Corporation and was used as an outdoor education facility until its closure in 2009. After a failed community buyout, Toward Castle and the estate were sold by Argyll and Bute Council to private owners in 2016.

Toward Castle
The original Toward Castle dates from the 15th century and was owned by the Clan Lamont until 1809. The castle was extended in the 17th century, but was abandoned after an attack by the Clan Campbell in 1646. The ruins lie around 500 metres (1,600 ft) south-east of the later Castle Toward. Toward Castle is a scheduled monument.

Castle Toward
The present Castle Toward was built in 1820 for Kirkman Finlay (1773–1842), former Lord Provost of Glasgow, as his family's country house. Finlay purchased the Achavoulin estate and renamed it Toward in 1818. It is built in the castellated Gothic Revival style, and was designed by David Hamilton. Edward La Trobe Bateman was involved in garden design work here in the 1880s.

It was from Castle Toward that the second son of Alexander Struthers Finlay - Alexander Kirkman Finlay - emigrated to the then colony of Victoria, Australia, and subsequently married the daughter of the then Governor of New South Wales, Hercules Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead. The wedding of Nora Robinson and Alexander Kirkman Finlay at St James' Church, Sydney, in 1878 attracted enormous attention in the colony and was extensively reported in the press.

Later owned and extended by Major Andrew Coats, of the Coats family of Paisley, Italian plasterwork was installed in the public rooms in 1920. The entire building was restored and enlarged over the course of the 1920s by the architect Francis William Deas, who also laid out most of the current landscaping. The grounds incorporate the ruins of the original Toward Castle, the Chinese ponds, wooded areas, access to the shore, and views over the Firth of Clyde.

HMS Brontosaurus
During the Second World War the castle was requisitioned as a combined operations centre (COC No. 2), and was commissioned as HMS Brontosaurus in 1942. It was a training centre for the amphibious landings which were launched on D-Day as well as other raids. Officers and men were trained in use of various landing craft on nearby beaches. Brontosaurus was visited by both Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten during this time. It closed in 1946.

Outdoor education centre
The castle, and 226 acres (0.91 km2) of woodland, were purchased by the Corporation of Glasgow in 1948. The building was used initially as a residential school for children recovering from illness or living in deprived home conditions. It then became available for residential education for children from all Glasgow Primary Schools and operated for 50 years as an outdoor education centre for children from Glasgow and Renfrewshire. With the reorganisation of local government in Scotland in 1996, ownership passed to Argyll and Bute Council and such centres were threatened with closure. Peter Wilson, at the time the principal of the centre, formed a company called Actual Reality to operate the centre, as well as a second council-owned centre at Ardentinny. Activities operated by Actual Reality included high ropes, kayaking, and orienteering, as well as gorge walks and hill walks. The grounds of the centre were used as a filming location for the children's BBC Television series Raven, featuring the actor James Mackenzie, up to and including the seventh series at the start of 2008. The house was also used for residential courses for young people in music and art. The Glasgow Schools' Symphony Orchestra and West of Scotland Schools' Concert Band visited regularly. The house has been a category B listed building since 1971, and the grounds were added to the national Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland in 2007.

Sale
On 13 November 2009 Argyll and Bute Council temporarily closed the castle on the recommendation of Strathclyde Fire and Rescue, on the grounds that it was unfit for purpose. There followed several attempts by the council to sell the estate, though all met with local opposition. The castle's former composer-in-residence, John Maxwell Geddes, wrote a Postlude for Strings in protest at plans to sell the castle. The Council placed the building on the market in 2010, and in response the South Cowal Community Development Company (SCCDC) was formed to explore community ownership of the castle, though their initial bid was rejected by the Scottish Ministers in 2011. An agreement was reached with a holiday company, which then pulled out of the sale in 2013 forcing the Council to market the property once more. SCCDC launched a second community ownership bid which was accepted by Scottish Ministers in November 2013. However, in December 2014 the Council rejected SCCDC's offer, claiming that at £865,000 it was below market value, and instead offered to support SCCDC with a loan. SCCDC dismissed the Council's proposal in January 2015, stating that securing the community purchase before a 31 January deadline now had "very little chance of succeeding". By 26 January, 5,600 people had signed an online petition calling on the Council to reconsider their decision. The council sold the castle in June 2016, for £1.51 million, to Denice Purdie and Keith Punler of Kapital Assets, who planned to develop houses, flats, a wedding venue and other businesses on the estate.
