An old postcard recently added to my collection.

Nice one, just for a minute I thought you'd posted a pic of Gilbertfield, very similar.

Details from Nigel Tranter's "The Fortified House in Scotland"

Baltersan has been a notably fine laird’s house of 1580, built on what were formerly church lands of nearby Crossraguel Abbey. It is said to have been erected by David Kennedy of Pennyglen, who was granted the lands in 1574 by Allan Stewart, Commendator of the abbey. The castle stands about two miles south of Maybole on the A77.

The building, which is tall, impressive and commodious, is L-planned, but unusual in more than one respect. The walls of the weathered golden sandstone rise to three main storeys and two attic storeys, with ashlar angle turrets at the north-west and south-east corners. The square stair wing is finished by being made to overhang on three-membered continuous corbelling at the top storey. The resulting watch chamber is provided with an unusual little squared window out-thrust to the north on machicolated individual corbels, with shotholes at either side. This is a peculiar arrangement in that the machicolation is not in the usual position above the doorway. Also interesting is the stair turret corbelled out in the re-entrant, which is angled instead of the normal circular construction. The angle turrets are provided with shotholes, and there is another in a peculiar position high on the east gable. A weather-worn panel surmounts the doorway in the re-entrant, and there is a strange stoup or stone basin projecting at basement level in the west gable, probably for catching rain-water. Cannon-like spouts drain the roof at the sides of the angle turrets – another unusual refinement.

The basement is vaulted, containing the kitchen to the west, and other cellars. The hall on the first floor measures 36ft (11m) by 19ft (5.8m), and has windows on three sides, two being provided with stone seats. It is well-furnished with wall closets for so late a house, and a private stair in the south-west angle gives more convenient access to upper floors. From this stairway a spy-hole looks down into the hall near its ceiling. The main stair is a wide spiral that rises to the second floor, above which ascent is continued by the turret stair.

Unfortunately this fine building is now roofless and in a ruinous state, although it's main features survive. Although Baltersan is first mentioned in the early 16th century, it appears that the building was not in existence at that time. John Kennedy of Baltersan, probably the son of the builder, had a dispute with the magistrates of Ayr in 1591. The property passed to his grandson in 1656 to the more powerful Kennedys of nearby Culzean. A little later, Baltersan is described as a stately fine house, with garden, orchards, parks and woods around it. Sadly, these have now all gone.

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Plans from Mike Salter's "The Castles of South West Scotland"

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The MacGibbon & Ross drawing

.and from 'Canmore'

Did this type of castle originally have outer walls and and other defences? and if not why didn't they?
Surely they would have been easier to get into if they didn't.

Earlier in the period in which this style was built they would have had a small fortified courtyard which in Scotland we call a barmkin, or in Ireland a bawn. The occurrence of these diminished as did the need for defensive features, particularly toward the end of the 16thc and into the early 17th, as relations with England in particular became more stable. The fortified aspect of house building for the gentry persisted a little longer in the highlands where local rivalries could blow up in raids or violence.
In general however, from the middle of the 16thc the defendability of these places diminished through lessened need, and through an increased desire for comfort and spacious domestic space.
Only the upper eschelons of Scottish society were ever able to afford to defend against artillery, and defendability against raiding parties with or against small arms was the main consideration.
In the case of Baltersan this quote is from Canmore (below)

In Gilbertfield there is a little more evidence in the variations and layout ouf the ground though no archeological excavation to illustrate or evidence the barmkin.
Certainly by 1650 there were few defensive features in new builds, but as with all generalisations, there will be an exception or two.

Thanks for those additions Gordon.

From the Glasgow Evening Times, 7th January 2008

Castles to get share of £1m aid

Two historic Ayrshire castles and a memorial hall in Lanark have been awarded almost £1million by Historic Scotland.

The ruined five-bedroom Baltersan Castle in South Ayrshire, which is A-listed, will get almost £500,000. A private owner wants to rebuild the 1584 structure and turn it into a timeshare venture. Although in ruins, the castle is regarded as of considerable importance, with sophisticated stone detailing.

Portencross Castle, near West Kilbride, will get £367,500 for repairs which will allow it to open to the public. Relatively intact, the building is an early example of an Ayrshire stronghold in a historically important area on the Firth of Clyde.

Lanark Memorial Hall, erected in memory of 232 men from the town who lost their lives in World War I, has been given almost £100,000. This will be used to carry out repairs to the B-listed building, creating work for skilled stonemasons, glass conservators and roofers.

A total of 12 projects will benefit from £2.6m of funding from Historic Scotland.
Linda Fabiana, Minister for Culture, said: "The grant-aided projects reflect the breadth and depth of Scotland's history and heritage. Each of these buildings will benefit their communities. Their repair will bring economic, cultural and community benefits providing training opportunities."

From the Independent, 5th March 2008

Castles: Taking on the ultimate doer-upper

It could be one of Britain's finest houses. For now, it's a crumbling ruin – but the Government will help fund its restoration. Helen Brown hits the high roads with a specialist castle dealer as he looks for a buyer with a sense of adventure

With the afternoon sun soaking into its lichen-licked walls, the ruins of Baltersan Castle glow the honeyed "gowd" of a Robert Burns poem. The remains of this romantic, late 16th-century Ayrshire landmark, just 13 miles from Glasgow Prestwick international airport, have just come on the market for the seductive price of £195,000. That's right – slightly more than a Dorset beach hut, slightly less than many one-bedroom flats in Brixton. And what's more, Historic Scotland will give the buyer of the ruin £492,000.

Of course, Baltersan Castle comes with a more substantial fiscal moat to cross than just its asking price. In order to secure that half-a-million-pound grant, you'll need to invest £1.5m in its restoration.

But any potential buyer will need more than money. As anyone who has ever bought a ruined castle will tell you, the project will require a substantial investment of time, vision, dedication and true love. James Brown, the current owner, has to admit that he has been punching above his weight since buying Baltersan (pronounced Bal-tair-son) in 1992.

"I'm just an ordinary man from a working-class background," he sighs, "but I've been gazing balefully at castles since I was five years old. After discovering McGibbon & Ross's classic, five-volume work on Scottish castles, I began scouring Scotland for somewhere I might buy. Those books being a century old, I found myself rolling up at places that had been converted into Victorian villas – or just a few stones in a field. But then, in the late 1980s, I found Baltersan. After a year of negotiating with the owner, the Marchioness of Ailsa, my offer of £5,000 was gazumped by a lady who offered £36,500. She could have got it for £5,500 if she'd known!

"In the early 1990s, this lady went bust and I bought it from the liquidators for £26,000. And it was then that I began to learn that a dream can become a heavy burden."

Brown spent the next 10 years fighting for planning permission and negotiating with the landowners for more than the "postage stamp" three-quarters of an acre that came with the ruin. "I'd finally agreed the grant from Historic Scotland, and agreed terms with the landowners. But I needed the private investment to create a private residence club. And it was at that last hurdle that I fell. I've spent £150,000 keeping architects and lawyers in gin and tonics. I even went on Dragons' Den to ask for the money, and was eaten alive.

"But I have reached my limit. I'm 61 years old now, I've cleared 1,000 tonnes of soil and rubble, catalogued artefacts, and sorted and stored the reusable masonry. I've taken the project as far as I can, and now it's time for me to have a life before death."

According to Jamie Macnab of Savills – a man who has been selling Scottish castles since 1990 – roughly 10 castles come on to the British market each year, generally priced between £400,000 and £5m. Macnab's formal title is James the Younger Macnab, and his family's Clan Macnab castle – Eilean Ran at the head of Loch Tay – was demolished by Oliver Cromwell's armies. The first castle he sold was Hatton Castle in Aberdeenshire, built in the 14th century and owned in the late 20th century by the Oliphant family. "By the time I got involved," says Macnab, "one of the Oliphants was working mad hours as a minicab driver in London just to keep the place going... until things were taken out of his hands."

"Castle buyers," explains Macnab, "are eccentrics. They're looking at buildings that make very few concessions to modern living. Your basic castle is a tower. The next stage up is an L-shape, and finally a Z-shape. You're looking at places designed around a great hall, with spiral staircases that run clockwise so that a right-handed swordsman could still fight. Today, people want a large family kitchen. They want bathrooms. I sold one castle where the facilities were so primitive that every bedroom needed a potty, which, when they were full, were put in wardrobes to keep the moths away!"

Modern castle-dwellers range from the old-school aristocrats (such as the Duke of Sutherland at Dunrobin Castle) through to successful businessmen (such as Mohamed Al Fayed, who owns Balnagowan Castle). Other castles (such as Skibo and Fernie) are run as clubs and hotels. Often, the private owners are so eccentric that they can make sales difficult. Macnab was once selling a castle whose owner's son tragically died halfway through the sale: "He buried the son in the garden – and that made selling it pretty much impossible."

Then there's the work that's been done. When Queen Victoria made a home of Balmoral, there was "a sudden vogue for Scottish castles, and many ruins were engulfed by the grand romantic Victorian style. Some people like that, but others feel the updating has diluted the purity of the original."

As an enthusiastic estate agent, Macnab started out getting deep into the history of the buildings he was marketing. "I would produce four pages of history, only to discover that buyers wanted the basic spec – the dimensions, number of bedrooms, acreage and plumbing details. The Russians, the Americans, the Brits: they're looking for a prestige home, not a museum.

"That said, the oddest places still sell. Some colleagues of mine were marketing a farm. There was a pile of stones in the grounds that once had been a castle, and they decided to put it up as a separate lot. It went for a fortune to a businessman from Hong Kong!" Perlin and Sam Dobson, property developers from Nottingham, bought Duncraig Castle, in the Highlands, five years ago. Their story is a lesson – and an inspiration – to prospective castle owners. "We went up to Scotland on our honeymoon," says Perlin, "and we saw Duncraig advertised for £360,000 in the national press. It had everything – 40 acres, a private chapel, a private beach, the view over Loch Carron... when we got to the top of the tower, I said, 'Oh man, I need this'. Of course, that was before I learnt about the Scottish 'offers over' sales system."

The Dobsons – who now run a B&B from Dunrcaig – ended up paying around £500,000 for their huge home, which had 15 bathrooms, no central heating or hot water, and sub-standard roofing – and as they completed the sale, the winter chill was setting in. Five years and £300,000 worth of investment on, Perlin says, "I'm only just acclimatising. I wasn't brought up on fairy tales – I'm a practical person – and there are days when the £3,000-£4,000-per-quarter electricity bills come in and I wonder why we're here. There are also days when our eight-year-old daughter loves running about the place. But I'm eight months' pregnant, the place will always be cold and damp, and the nearest hospital is 90 miles away. Even the nearest Tesco is 70 miles from here.

"I'm also aware of a responsibility we have to the building: I have to do things to the interiors the way they should be, not the way I'd necessarily choose in a modern house. But I like to think we're restoring the building's grace. We love it. And even though we're only a quarter of the way through the restoration, and we need to keep the dehumidifiers running, we'd never go back."

Perlin Dobson's advice to anybody looking at investing in Baltersan cuts both ways. "I'd say at least double any renovation costs. Be prepared for tradesmen to shake their heads and vanish. But in our case, our castle had been a hospital and a school. Because we were working with preconstructed infrastructure, it can take a guy who's popped in to fix the shower three days to figure out how to turn the water off.

"With Baltersan, you've got an advantage. You might think that just having the walls is a negative, but you can actually put in a modern infrastructure in terms of plumbing and electrics. It might actually work out cheaper in the long run."

Macnab's advice is to be aware that Historic Scotland's involvement is a blessing and a curse. "They will want only their own certified craftsmen involved and that will be more expensive. They're nicknamed 'Hysterical Scotland' up here. There are people who've been fighting for years to turn their ruins into functioning buildings because Historic Scotland like the romance of ruins, and if things are going to be restored, they'll have to be 'just so'.

"That said, I think it's fantastic they're involved. A buyer is going to end up with an incredible property. And, of course, the one thing these places were built for is security. You're never going to have a problem with burglars."

As for Baltersan Castle – which is just six miles from Turnberry and 25 minutes from Scotland's other west-coast Open Championship course at Royal Troon – the restoration already has listed-building consent as a Category-A building, and full planning consent. Rebuilt, it could serve as a five-bedroom family residence, a second home, or a holiday retreat for a group of joint owners to share throughout the year. Present reconstruction plans envisage a revival of the old ground-floor kitchen and first-floor great hall, with library-cum-sitting room, four en-suite bedrooms, plus an outlook room/bedroom with private bathroom.

James Brown, the owner who has taken Baltersan to this stage, is willing to offer his expertise to new owners as project consultant. He admits that it is usually impossible to turn a ruin into a home and get a return on your investment, "but I hope Historic Scotland's investment will cancel that out," he says. "And I hope it finds a buyer who won't treat it as a toy, who won't want to create a homage to Braveheart. This place is poetry in stone, with connections to Keats, Burns and Ruskin. It has a remarkable history and I don't like to think a 'ruin' is a 'defeat'.

"Mark Twain once said, 'Buy land because they're not making it any more'. I say, buy a 16th-century castle because they're not making those any more, either."

Baltersan Castle, Ayrshire, offers in excess of £195,000 for an investor with £1.5m Agents: Strutt and Parker, contact Geoff Lockett 0141-225 3880 View at: www.baltersan.com

Baltersan Castle Sales Brochure

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Floorplans and proposed reconstruction

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