Sorne Castle

Captain Francis Grose was one of the first systematic recorders of architectural and archaeological remains in Britain. His six volume Antiquities of England and Wales published between 1773 and 1787, was followed by Antiquities of Scotland in two volumes published in 1789 and 1791. Robert Burns met him while he was undertaking the latter, and became a friend – writing three pieces about him including On Captain Grose’s Peregrinations through Scotland. This is a plate from Antiquities of Scotland showing Sorn Castle.   "This castle is most delightfully situated on a lofty and well wooded rocky terrace, overlooking the water of Ayr.  The building, though inhabited, having been lately repaired, seems at least as old as the beginning of the fifteenth century.  It was formerly a seat of the Earls of Loudoun."