Barony and Castle of Kilbirnie
tower house in Kilbirnie, North Ayrshire, Scotland, UK
The substantial remains of the old castle and sixteenth century manor house of Kilbirnie lie west of the town of Kilbirnie in North Ayrshire, Scotland, on the lower slopes of the Glengarnock Hills, in the old Barony of Kilbirnie. The building is also variously known as the Place of Kilbirnie, The Place, or Kilbirnie House.
The site lies close to a stream and small but deep ravine that once provided a defensive function for the castle site. The castle and manor house themselves are not in the grounds of the Kilbirnie Place Golf Club, which was itself laid out in 1925 on the old landscaped 'pleasure grounds' once attached to the castle site.
The OS maps show that a much later estate and house called Place was located nearby, built by the Knox family but now mostly demolished.
History
The name "Kilbirnie" is derived from the Gaelic language, and means "Church of St Brendan". The parish was divided into three baronies: Kilbirnie, Ladyland, and Glengarnock. The feudal Barony of Kilbirnie was the largest in the parish at around 5500 acres and had the most fertile quarter with 3000 acres of arable, pasture and woodland.
Kilbirnie Castle is said to be the site where in 1263 the Scots mustered under Alexander III before fighting Norwegian forces in the Battle of Largs.
The castle's location is on high ground above the bend of a deep ravine, giving the site some protection along its west and north sides although it is set back from the edge of this ravine.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4862997. Authority coordinates are 55.751, -4.705. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925 and 1263.
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This entry incorporates text from “Barony and Castle of Kilbirnie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.