[10] One source has it that Sir Robert Fairlie of that Ilk built the present castle in 1521, the family having held the lands since the fourteenth century.

[15] The Fairlies of that Ilk are said to have originated from the youngest son of the Ross family of Tarbert and upon being granted the lands took the name of the barony as their own.

[22] John Fairlie of that Ilk is recorded to have had a daughter Marion who married Thomas Boyd of Linn and later remarried into the ancestral line of the Marquis of Bute.

The castle stands in a defensible situation overlooking the steep, wooded and picturesque Fairlie Glen on its southern side, the boundary between the parishes of West Kilbride and Largs.

[29] The metalled path that today runs past the castle shows extensive remains of very old paving that suggests that it was once a main communication route and probably ran across Fairlie Moor to Dalry.

[30] Elizabeth, Lady Wardlaw is thought by some to be the author of a legend based at Fairlie Castle, namely The Ballad of Hardyknute published in 1719.

Despite his age he gathers his sons and men and sets off to support his sovereign lord at Largs, but on the way they encounter a seemingly mortally wounded knight who despite an offer of assistance asks to be left to die.

On their victorious return from the battle they find the castle silent and abandoned and the implication is that the youngest son, daughter and possibly others have fallen prey to the traitorous wounded knight.

[36] Elvira Anna Phipps visited the castle in 1841 and produced a very competent engraving showing that it was without a roof and the parapet was in ruins, much as it is today.