A building may have stood on or near to the site prior to the seventeenth century as indicated by the name ‘Kouden’ that is recorded on Timothy Pont’s Renfrewshire map that dates from between 1583 and 1596.

[10] Walter Spreull of Cowden was High Steward of Dumbarton and a member of a family who had a long association with the parish of Neilston.

In 1545 Mary Queen of Scots granted the lands of Cowden to Spreulls for good service indicating a short period from 1441 when the family did not hold the barony (however see below).

[14] In 1507 John Spreul, a younger son of the family, became the vicar of Dunlop as well as a professor of philosophy at Glasgow University and then Rector.

[15] William Cochrane of Cowden was responsible for building the hall whose ruins survive in part with later additions also extant in a ruinous condition.

[16] As stated the estate in 1622 was sold to Alexander Blair of that Ilk who married a Cochrane heiress and adopted her name, the family becoming Earls of Dundonald.

The armorial bearing of the Spreuls of Coudoun was, "Or; a Chevron Checquie, Azure and Argent; betwixt three Purses, Guiles.

[23] In 1831 a print of the hall indicates that the main part of the complex faced the Neilston Gap and today's ruins may have been left as an estate worker's accommodation and outbuilding when the new Cowden Hall was built and stone robbed from here was probably used in its construction or for the extensive landscaping works that stood nearby such as the loch's dam.

[27] The surviving remains of the hall consist of a rectangular structure on a north-west to south-east axis with a central division that suggest two phases of construction as one half has walls that are narrower than the other.

[31] In 1910 it is recorded that the old hall was surrounded by woodland composed of ancient forest sized trees including sycamore, ash and beech.