Qualla: Turnberry Castle

Turnberry Castle: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Walter Baxter, CC BY-SA 2.0. Robert the Bruce ordered Turnberry Castle destroyed in 1310. He had grown up here; this was the seat of his earldom; his mother Marjorie had been Countess of Carrick of this place. None of that mattered against the calculation that the English might take it back. He had it pulled down. What you see today on the cliff above the Firth of Clyde - lower vaults, fragments of wall, vestiges of a drawbridge, an old portcullis - is what survives of a fortress its own king sacrificed.

Read more: Turnberry Castle on Qualla

Image: Walter Baxter | CC BY-SA 2.0

Turnberry Castle: A Reluctant Marriage

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fraser Sutherland, CC BY 2.5. Turnberry was originally a stronghold of the Lords of Galloway, and passed into the hands of the Earls of Carrick around the start of the thirteenth century. By the late 1200s it belonged to Marjorie, the widowed Countess of Carrick. Medieval legend says that Marjorie held the vi...

Read more: Turnberry Castle on Qualla

Image: Fraser Sutherland | CC BY 2.5

Turnberry Castle: A Secret Meeting in 1286

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two events tie the castle directly to the Bruce story. On 20 September 1286, several Scottish barons who backed the Bruce family's claim to the crown met secretly at Turnberry Castle. The boy who would become King of Scots was twelve years old at the time, almost certainly under ...

Read more: Turnberry Castle on Qualla

Image: Michal Klajban | CC BY-SA 4.0

Turnberry Castle: Pulled Down by Its Own King

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rosser1954, CC BY-SA 3.0. Then Bruce had it destroyed. In 1310, having retaken the castle, he ordered it slighted - reduced to a state in which the English could not use it again as a base in Carrick. It was a calculated strategic move, repeated by Bruce at other Scottish castles for the same reason: deny...

Read more: Turnberry Castle on Qualla

Image: Rosser1954 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Turnberry Castle: The Lighthouse on the Foundation

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rosser1954, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1873, Turnberry Lighthouse was built on part of the castle's site, and it still stands. The juxtaposition is odd and rather beautiful: a Victorian navigational aid grafted onto the foundations of a medieval Scottish fortress, both of them perched on the same cliff above the sa...

Read more: Turnberry Castle on Qualla

Image: Rosser1954 | CC BY-SA 4.0