Dundonald Castle

Dundonald Castle is situated on a hill overlooking the village of Dundonald, between Kilmarnock and Troon in South Ayrshire, Scotland. Dundonald Castle is a fortified tower house built for Robert II on his accession to the throne of Scotland in 1371 and it was used as a royal residence by Robert II and his son Robert III.

History

Dark age hill fort

The present castle stands on land where evidence suggest there used to be a hill fort. It is thought that a mixture of large timber built round houses and straight-sided structures occupy the interior. A timber laced stone rampart defines and defends the hill fort. The timber lacing caught fire and burnt with such intensity that the surrounding stonework melted, or vitrified. This firing happened about 1000 AD and seems to mark the end of the hill-fort’s existence.

It was about this date that the independence of the British Kingdom of Strathclyde ceased, being absorbed into the kingdom of Scotland.

The place name Dundonald means “Donald’s Fort”. Historians do not know who Donald was but he may have been one of three kings of that name who ruled in Strathclyde in the 10th century.

Dundonald

Coordinates: 54°35′38″N 5°48′47″W / 54.594°N 5.813°W / 54.594; -5.813

Dundonald (from Irish: Dún Dónaill, meaning "Dónall's stronghold") is a large settlement and civil parish in County Down. It lies east of Belfast and is often deemed to be a suburb of the city. It includes the large housing estate of Ballybeen, and many new housing developments have emerged in the past ten years.

History

Dundonald refers to a 12th-century Norman fort, or Dún, Dún Dónaill, that stood in the town. One of the largest in Ireland, the man-made hill that the fort stood on is still in existence.

Although the mound is commonly referred to as 'the moat' this is, in fact, a corruption of the word 'motte' and refers to the fact that this defensive structure was built in the style of a motte and bailey. St. Elizabeth's Church is located beside the moat, with the Cleland Mausoleum in the adjacent graveyard.

Dundonald acquired rail links to Belfast and Newtownards in 1850, Downpatrick in 1859 and Newcastle in 1869. The town was located on the once extensive Belfast and County Down Railway mainline. The rail link with Belfast encouraged Dundonald to expand as a commuter town, but in 1950 the railway line running through Dundonald was closed. Dundonald railway station was opened on 6 May 1850, but finally closed on 24 April 1950.

Dundonald (disambiguation)

Dundonald may refer to:

Places

Dundonald, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

People

Earl of Dundonald, a Scottish peerage

Buildings and locations

Ships

Dundonald (ship)

The Dundonald was a steel, four-masted barque of 2,205 tons, which was launched in Belfast in 1891. She was shipwrecked in 1907 in the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. Only 15 of the 28 crew survived and were rescued seven months later by a scientific expedition.

Shipwreck

After setting sail from Sydney, Australia on 17 February 1907, bound for Falmouth with a cargo of wheat, she was forced onto rocks during a squall and sank on 7 March on the west of Disappointment Island, 5 miles north west of the Auckland Islands, 180 miles south of New Zealand.

Shipwrecked crew

Only 17 members of the 28 crew managed to escape the wreck to shore. One man, Walter Low, made the shore but slipped off the cliff back into the sea and was never seen again. Another, the mate Jabez Peters, died of exposure on 25 March 1907, eighteen days after the disaster. He was buried in the sands, but in November 1907, members of the Hinemoa's crew exhumed his body and re-interred it at the Hardwicke cemetery at Port Ross, in Erebus Cove, in the Auckland Islands; Peters' father and brother were also lost at sea in New Zealand waters.