CASTLE KENNEDY 



If there is a prevailing blemish in British park 

 scenery, it is a tendency to sameness. That has 

 been avoided at Castle Kennedy by a peculiar 

 treatment of natural features, in themselves the 

 reverse of imposing, such as I have not seen at- 

 tempted on a similar scale elsewhere. Here, on 

 the isthmus between two seas, lie two ample sheets 

 of fresh water, the Black and the White Lochs 

 of Inch ; and the inner isthmus between these 

 lakes has been wrought into a strange complexity 

 of terraces and grassy slopes. The ruins of Castle 

 Kennedy, a good example of the domestic archi- 

 tecture of the seventeenth century, destroyed by 

 fire in 1715, stand on a green plateau at one end 

 of this isthmus. At the other end, best part of a 

 mile distant, is the modern mansion of Lochinch, 

 residence of the Earl of Stair, a spacious specimen 

 of that style which was developed under French 

 influence in the sixteenth century ; when country 

 houses, ceasing to be purely defensive, assumed 

 more hospitable features. 



How comes it that two such great castles 

 stand fronting each other within the same 

 demesne ? Was it not said by those of olden 

 time, and have not our fathers declared unto us, 

 that 



" 'Twixt Wigtown and the town of Ayr, 

 Portpatrick and the Cruives o' Cree, 



Nae man need think for to bide there 

 Except he ride wi' Kennedy." 



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