Culzean Castle

Overview

Culzean Castle is a must when visiting Ayrshire. It is expensive, but you can happily spend several hours exploring the castle, the walled garden, the visitor centre, the multitude of woodland and clifftop paths, the gift shops and the excellent adventure playground at the Swan Pond.

Culzean Castle is a celebrated design by Robert Adam, built between 1772 and 1790 for David Kennedy, 10th Earl of Cassillis. The Kennedy family donated the castle to the National Trust for Scotland in 1945 and asked that the top floor would be gifted to General Eisenhower as a thank you from the people of Scotland for his role in WW2.

The interior of the castle is very grand in terms of scale and furnishings. A large number of rooms are open to the public and you seem to see most of the castle with a tour that takes you through 10 major rooms and then out through the servants' quarters / kitchen.

Particular items to look out for are the beautifully detailed ceilings in the Blue Drawing Room and the Long Drawing Room. Other notable features are the elegant red carpeted stairs of the central "Courtyard" and the clifftop views from the Round Drawing Room. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside the castle and this rule is strictly applied.

On sunny days we recommend that you walk down to the Swan Pond where you can buy some excellent ice cream and have a picnic on the large grass area beside the lake. Just beside the Swan Pond is an excellent adventure playground for children that consists of an impressively large wooden fortress and a treetop assault course that is a warren of tunnels, climbing frames, zip wires, slides and suspended walkways. 

The admission price is high and you may not feel that the castle alone is worthy of the charge, but the attraction of Culzean is the wide variety of features throughout the park that are too numerous to list here. On a sunny day, a young family you could easily spend a full afternoon here.