Carsluith Castle

Carsluith Castle appears typical of the L-shaped tower houses of its era in Scotland, but it may have a more complicated building history than most, possibly starting out as a simple oblong tower in the mid-1400s. 

The lands of Carsluith Castle passed hands several times during the early 1500s. The carved panel above the doorway is now nearly illegible, but was recorded in the 1800s as portraying the Broun arms and the date 1568. 

Earlier researchers believed that the present stair tower was an addition to an earlier structure, as it runs awkwardly into a window recess in the original building. But this ‘window’ was in fact the access to a projecting timber gallery.

This gallery would have been a particularly eye-catching feature. It is now gone, but its supporting corbels and a mark showing the line of its roof can still be seen.

The residence comprised:

• two stone-vaulted storage cellars on the ground floor

• a large hall occupying the entire first floor

• two further floors of private chambers

• an attic storey

Carsluith stayed with the Brouns until 1748, when James Broun, a London merchant, sold out to the Johnstons.

Gilbert Broun, the last abbot of Sweetheart Abbey, may have been born at Carsluith. He took his Holy Orders when the Scottish Church was in crisis, and was abbot at Sweetheart during the Protestant Reformation of 1560.

Broun fortified his abbey and continued celebrating Catholic Mass there despite opposition from the government and the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. In 1609, a search of his house in the town of New Abbey revealed a cache of ‘popish trash’. This was destroyed, and Broun was forced into exile. He eventually died in Paris.