Penkill Castle

The 16th-century tower was built by a branch of the Boyd family, relatives of the Earls of Kilmarnock, and extended several times.

[2] In 1992 Penkill was sold by Eckstrand to Scots-born Canadian businessman Don Brown, then subsequently in 1993 to the then HTV Wales chairman and TV producer and director Patrick Dromgoole, and thus remains in private hands.

In the late 1850s, the Pre-Raphaelite artist William Bell Scott began a liaison with Alice Boyd, whose brother was then the laird.

Scott visited Penkill often and on one occasion painted a series of murals illustrating James I's poem The Kingis Quair in the staircase.

[3] The castle was frequented by other Pre-Raphaelite artists and writers, including Christina Rossetti, who wrote of it: "Even Naples in imagination cannot efface the quiet fertile comeliness of Penkill in reality.