Loch Doon Castle, Ayrshire
The castle on the banks of Loch Doon, in southern Ayrshire. This one needs a bit of explanation...
The castle was originally built on an island in the loch, pictures of which are below.
In 1935/6 the water level in the loch was raised when they built a hydro-electric dam at the north end so the castle was moved, stone by stone, to its present location on the bank nearby.
This shows the car park, popular with picnickers.
The path up the hill behind the castle takes you to the top of the Wee Hill of Craigmulloch at 210 metres or so (690 feet) above the loch.
For the historically-minded the castle goes back to 1306 (though the original location on the island was used earlier) and it played a pivotal role in the wars of independence. It was designed and built by Sir Christopher Seton, brother-in-law of Robert Bruce, King of Scots, and he met a sad end at the hands of the English when the castle was captured some time after the battle of Methven in 1306.
The island on which the castle was originally built, only visible today because of the dry spring and low water levels on the loch.
As you can see the foundations remain to this day. The loch is about a half mile wide at this point (800 metres) and the island is roughly half-way across.
There is another island nearby (Pickmaw Island) currently still under water, which was reputed to be used as a prison by the castle's owners.
The smaller picture shows the island in more detail.
The full-sized images available to clients are about 70 times the size of the images shown here
and as you would expect they show a great deal more detail than the .jpg website versions.
Standard images are 5,000 pixels wide and ~50Mb in size. Panoramas are much bigger.
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