Killaser Castle, Wigtownshire – Scotland

Killaser Castle

Killaser Castle is located in Wigtownshire in and area called the Rhins of Galloway in Scotland.  The castle belonged to the McCulloch’s of Ardwell who were prominent feudal landowners in the region. The remains of this tower house stand within the vestiges of a ditched enclosure in an area of low lying ground about 1,400 feet southeast of the Cairnhandy farmhouse. The rectangular tower (21 feet by 16 feet within a wall up to almost 7 feet thick) has been reduced to its lowest courses, but enough survives to indicate the presence of a vaulted ground floor, a mural passage and the possible provision for a stair or latrine at the northeast angle.

In 1892 the castle was described as follows: “An ancient seat of the McCulloch’s of Ardwell standing in a large field immediately adjoining the Ardwell house policies (i.e. the enclosed grounds and gardens surrounding a large country house or mansion, ed.) The ruins as they now exist are very small and are chiefly buried in the debris which forms a mound about 60 to 65 square feet. The castle appears not to have been of great elevation and the present height of the walls does not exceed 18 feet above the ordinary level of the field. The structure appears to have formed a square keep of which two sides are now partially visible; a third is concealed under the mound, and of the fourth only the foundations probably remain.” [McLean; The Presence of the Past, 1997, 66]

“The ground floor has been vaulted, about three feet of wall above the springing still remaining. On the first floor level the north wall is pierced by a passage 3 feet 3 inches in width, still partially roofed, and which seems to have led to a stair where the exterior wall has been thickened at the north-east angle. Two windows of small dimensions light this passage, one of them being only a circular bole 6 or 7 inches in diameter, cut out of a slab of ruddy silurian grit from the Stewartry. Another opening of the same kind shows itself on the ground floor level immediately below. With exception of these two specimens of freestone, the entire building, including the quoining, is of rubble. A few yards to the north runs a small stream called Killasser Burn, but outside the keep there are now no traces of outbuildings or defenses of any kind.” [The Castellated And Domestic Architecture of Scotland, V, 1892, 308]

When we visitied the site in May, 2024 no remnants of of the roof remained. It does not appear any steps are being taken to preserve the structure which sits on a mound in an isolated cow pasture.