Castle Wemyss

Burns commissioned the architect Robert William Billings to remodel the house in the Scottish baronial style, expanding the original structure by adding a new floor, new wings and a clock tower to the south-east corner.

Castle Wemyss became a fashionable destination for many well-known visitors, including Lord Shaftesbury, Anthony Trollope, General Sherman, Henry Morton Stanley, Peter II of Yugoslavia, Emperor Haile Selassie and members of the British royal family.

[2] Whether this is true or not, Trollope places Portray in a similar geographical location, with a description which is very like that of the castle and its grounds.

Greenfield legislation meant that whilst much of the larger estate was developed as Wemyss Bay grew in the 1960s and 1970s, the house itself was left untouched.

Gradually falling into decay (and subsequently de-roofed to avoid payment of housing rates) it was not until 1984 that it was finally demolished.