Overview

Suggested Development

Construction and Conservation

Siege of 1570 and Later Kitchens

Entrance Tower

The Guard Room

Destruction and Picturesque Ruin→

Destruction and Picturesque Ruin

In the photo on the right, you are looking into the middle floor of a three storied accommodation range which was built against the entrance tower. The lower floor was not excavated but may have formed an earlier kitchen.

The demise of the castle is dramatically represented by the piece of masonry - some 25 tons - fallen into the keep. The cause of abandonment of the castle is unknown. The archaeological evidence suggests that the last occupation of the site occurred in the seventeenth century and an account of 1694 described the the castle as being 'wholly ruined' and local tradition had it that the castle was burnt, little evidence for such an event was recovered. The Great War period may have provided occasion for the slighting of the castle or, as Ardrossan, Castle to the north of Ayr, removal of building materials for the construction of the Cromwellion Castle in Ayr.

The evidence from the excavation demonstrates that - foe or not - the castle was carefully and systematically dismantled for recoverable building materials such as slates, timber, sandstone dressings, window glass and lead. In the kitchen range slates were stripped, carefully sorted and stacked and broken slates discarded. A midden (rubbish dump) revealed that the lowest level of the entrance tower contained seventeenth century pottery, many animal bones and building debris. This would appear to represent waste left by those dismantling the castle. Some of the building materials removed may have been taken to the other Kennedy fortress at Cassillis, being remodelled and extended in the later seventeenth century.

From the seventeenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century the castle formed a huge quarry for building stones, both whin and sandstone. It is likely that the houses surrounding Dunure Harbour built after 1810, the limekilns, Dunure mill and other structures in the vicinity were constructed from castle stone. The robbing out of the valuable sandstone accounts for the particularly ragged appearance of the ruins one sees today.

Throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, Dunure Castle ruins became increasingly popular as a prominent and picturesque landmark. Many engravings and paintings survive from this time and the excavations provide evidence for the debris left by successive generations of visitors.