page_title: Seagate Castle
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Seagate Castle / History / The castle / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Seagate Castle, Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland. Detail of the South-East tower.
context_page_description: Seagate Castle is a castle in North Ayrshire, in the town of Irvine, close to the River Irvine, Scotland. The castle was formerly a stronghold, a town house, and later a dower house of the Montgomery Clan. The castle overlooks the oldest street in Irvine, which was once the main route between the town and the old harbour at Seagatefoot, which by 1606, was useless and abandoned due to silting. The remains of the castle are protected as a scheduled ancient monument.
context_section_description: The entrance doorway is of the Scottish Renaissance Gothic style, and the building, less defensive and more an elegant mansion, has elegant moulded windows and other ornate embellishments. The castle is entered through a vaulted pend running through the north section of the main block, which has a fine ornamental arched doorway, opening into the courtyard and having similarities with the southern entrance passageway at Linlithgow Palace. A lengthy main block faces the street, to the east of this three towers projected, two were round and one was triangular; probably because of the lie of the land. It has been suggested that this tower is of a much older construction, but other authorities dispute this. A small guardroom and a prison pit may have existed in this area. 
  The south half of the long main block and one round tower now are reduced to the basement and foundations, but the remainder is fairly entire as far as the wallhead. The courtyard with a curtain wall and subsidiary building existed to the east. The ground floor is fairly complete with vaulted accommodation, with two guard rooms, each having a single door; a typical defensive precaution of the time. The kitchen and fireplace survive, as do the two principal rooms to the south, the southernmost of which was the only room to connect with the upper floor; a private stair leading up from it to what was probably the great hall. The kitchen has an arch, a large window, and aumbries, together with a serving hatch in the adjoining passageway. The upper floors, with their fireplaces and fine moulded windows, were reached via the round tower entered from the courtyard.
  The ornate entrance off Seagate has attracted some debate as to its origin, being visually more ecclesiastical than baronial in appearance, variously described as 'Saxon', 'Norman', or 'Scottish Gothic' in style. McGibbon and Ross were of the opinion that the doorway is quite typical of sixteenth and seventeenth century Scottish Renaissance Gothic work as found in several collegiate and parish churches and not necessarily Norman in origin. Kilwinning Abbey was being sacked and progressively demolished at this time and stonework may have been removed to build this doorway and also used for the building of the rest of the structure. The Romanesque mouldings at Seagate have been compared with similar work, circa 1573, found at Blairquhan (old) Castle, possibly Maybole, and several other West of Scotland castles.
  A cesspool was conveniently, but unhygienically located just outside the back door of the kitchen in the courtyard, with a channel running to it from the fireplace. Other pipes linked to this channel from garderobes upstairs. A good number of different mason's marks are located on the stonework in the entrance pend and elsewhere. The building may have been harled, a form of roughcast.
caption: Detail of the old watchtower overlooking the old harbour
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