Crookston Castle

Crookston Castle rises on ground that had been fortified long before its stone was laid. The castle itself was built around 1400 by the Stewarts of Darnley, yet a defensive ring ditch dug in the twelfth century marks an earlier timber-and-earth stronghold raised by Sir Robert de Croc, whose name the place still carries and who founded a chapel here in 1180. The medieval castle followed an unusual plan — a rectangular main block with a tower at each corner — and only the north-east tower now survives to any height, holding a barrel-vaulted hall and a basement prison behind walls up to nearly four metres thick. In 1489 the great cannon Mons Meg was brought to batter the castle after a rebellion, bringing down its western towers. Crookston later entered the story of Mary, Queen of Scots: tradition holds she was betrothed to Lord Darnley beneath a yew tree in the grounds, though the tale is unverified, and Walter Scott’s claim that she watched the Battle of Langside from that tree is contradicted by the lie of the land itself. The Darnley Stewarts held the castle until 1703. In 1931 it became the very first property taken into the care of the National Trust for Scotland, and it is maintained today as a scheduled monument by Historic Environment Scotland.