Castle Toward

Castle Toward (Scottish Gaelic: Caisteal an Toll Àird) is a nineteenth-century country house in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.

Built in 1820 by Glasgow merchant Kirkman Finlay, it replaced the late medieval Toward Castle, formerly the ancestral home of the Clan Lamont.

The wedding of Nora Robinson and Alexander Kirkman Finlay at St James' Church, Sydney, in 1878 attracted enormous attention in the colony and was extensively reported in the press.

The entire building was restored and enlarged over the course of the 1920s by the architect Francis William Deas, who also laid out most of the current landscaping.

The grounds incorporate the ruins of the original Toward Castle, the Chinese ponds, wooded areas, access to the shore, and views over the Firth of Clyde.

[11] With the reorganisation of local government in Scotland in 1996, ownership passed to Argyll and Bute Council and such centres were threatened with closure.

The house has been a category B listed building since 1971,[6] and the grounds were added to the national Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland in 2007.

[4] On 13 November 2009 Argyll and Bute Council temporarily closed the castle on the recommendation of Strathclyde Fire and Rescue, on the grounds that it was unfit for purpose.

[14] The council sold the castle in October 2016, for £1.51 million, to Scottish entrepreneurs and married couple Denice Purdie and Keith Punler, who planned to restore the mansion house and grounds to their former glory.

Ruins of Toward Castle