Overview

Suggested→ Development

Construction and conservation

Siege of 1570 and Later Kitchens

Entrance Tower

The Guard Room

Destruction and Picturesque Ruin

The Development of Dunure Castle

Dunure Castle was one of the principal fortresses of medieval Carrick. While the Gallic Dun-ure of "fort of the yew tree" demonstrates an early defence on this natural strong point, little now remains from such times. Dunure was successively developed by the Kennedy Family from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, eclipsing the once-great Bruce fortress of Turnberry by the fifteenth century. Family history relates that the Battle of Largs, 1263. The first documented Kennedy at the site, however, is John of Dunure, whose lands were confirmed in 1357. Little is known of the history of Dunure in the fourteeth and fifteenth centuries. During this period the castle evolved rapidly from a simple castle of enclosure upon the crag to a substantial hall-house with protected entrance tower, and, finally, to an immense six-storied keep with ancillary ranges to the south, a chapel and outer fortifications. This evolution mirrors the ever-increasing prominence of the Kennedys who, through a royal marriage in 1405, elevation to Lordship in 1458 and the Earldom of Cassillis in 1509, had become the most powerful family in Carrick and major players in national affairs. By 1563, when Queen Mary spent three nights at Dunure during her royal progress through southwest Scotland, the fortress had reached its apogee and is described in contemporary sources as 'A fare castell' and 'a grate and plesand strong housse'. At this time it was the principal residence of the notorious Gilbert Kennedy, 4th Earl of Cassillis and so-called 'King of Carrick' (succ. 1558, d76).