Barscobe Castle

During the long War of the Covenants that followed the National Covenant of 1638, Barscobe became the meeting place for the late 17th century Covenanters, secretly gathering at the Holy Linn waterfall in Barscobe Wood to carry out illegal Conventicles and baptisms in their struggle for religious freedoms Robert Maclellan was involved in a skirmish in 1666 at the Clachan Inn in nearby St. John's Town of Dalry, when he wounded Corporal George Deanes of the Royal Dragoon Guards by shooting fragments of his clay pipe into his leg.

Later, in November of the same year, he led a force of 200 men to Dumfries where he captured Sir James Turner, district commander of the Royal Dragoon Guards, who had been sent to Galloway to deal severely with Covenanter disturbances, a period known as The Killing Time.

But, just a year after his return, he was murdered at Barscobe by Robert Grierson of Mylnemark, a fellow Covenanter who felt Maclellan had betrayed the cause.

It was sold again in 1961 to hotelier and politician Sir Hugh Wontner who restored Barscobe Castle in the 1970s under the guidance of its first tenant, Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte.

Barscobe Castle has been inhabited since November 2011 by Stewart Gibson and Lorraine Belshaw and as of 2015 was running as small seasonal bed and breakfast.