Plunton Castle
United Kingdom · Europe
About
Plunton Castle is a ruined L-plan tower house between Kirkandrews and Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Built around 1575 for the Lennoxes of Plunton, it passed by marriage to the Murrays of Broughton in the late 17th century. It was still inhabited in 1684, when it was described by Reverend Symson in his Large Description of Galloway as "a good strong house", but by 1838, when it was painted by George Colomb, it had been abandoned and had fallen into a ruinous condition.
Well defended on all sides by burns, a ditch and marshy ground, it has numerous gun loops built into its walls. There were iron grilles in the windows, and it was further protected by a high wall, but its defensive arrangements were weakened by the fact that one of its ground floor chambers does not communicate with the other rooms of the tower, and was only accessible from the outside. Archaeological evidence for a walled courtyard, gardens and ancillary buildings survives beneath ground level in the surrounding field.
Plunton Castle's romantic setting inspired Walter Scott's poorly received melodramatic play, The Doom of Devorgoil. It was designated a scheduled monument in 1937. Historic Environment Scotland describes its condition as fragile, but notes that it would be possible to restore the building to an inhabitable condition, as has happened at nearby Barholm Castle.
Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.