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.

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Dundonald Castle
Dundonald, South Ayrshire, Scotland
From south west
Dundonald Castle
Coordinates	55.57681°N 4.5972°W / 55.57681; -4.5972
Site information
Open to the public	Yes
Condition	Ruin
Website	Official website

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There is a visitor centre at the foot of the hill, which includes a cafe, souvenir shop and an interpretive exhibition. The exhibition outlines the history of the castle and its preceding buildings with detailed models of the earlier castles on the site.

The visitor centre is owned by South Ayrshire Council and the castle is owned by Historic Scotland. Both the castle and the visitor centre are operated by the Friends of Dundonald Castle.^[7] The castle was made a scheduled monument^[8] in 1920 and the schedule was updated in 2017.

A ley tunnel is said to run from Seagate Castle in Irvine to Dundonald Castle.^[9]

Minor archaeological investigations took place at Dundonald in the 1960s. These established that the rubble base was up to 4 feet in depth and rested on bedrock, which had been deliberately levelled with stones to form a cobbled surface. The curtain wall of the inner courtyard was shown to have been butted on to the keep, and rested on bedrock without any footings. The keep would seem to be resting on ashlar footings or underpinnings, a single course projecting in front of the castle wall. Part of this was pointed with mortar of nineteenth century date, probably contemporary with the consolidation work carried out at that period. There were no significant finds.^[10]

Three main seasons of archaeological excavation were completed between 1986 and 1988, in advance of a programme of conservation. Subsequently a series of smaller-scale excavations were undertaken finishing in 1993.^[11] These excavations were led by Gordon Ewart (Kirkdale Archaeology) and focussed on the area within the barmkin enclosure of the present castle. They discovered material indicating multiple periods of occupation, dating back to the Bronze Age.

The material discovered relates to:

• Charcoal-rich layers, possibly Neolithic.
• Kiln-like structures and a scatter of Bronze Age pottery fragments, the disturbance of which suggests successive phases of a permanent settlement.
• Grains including emmer wheat, which can be present at sites from the Neolithic through to the Iron Age.
• Iron Age Hillfort with several large wooden roundhouses and a fragment of palisade on the lower terrace to the north of the exposed drystone circuit. Successive building on each of the house sites shows an extended period of occupation.
• Shale or lignite bracelets and glass beads suggest the settlement continued to the 4th and 5th centuries AD.

In 2017-18 Historic Environment Scotland (HES) worked in partnership with the Friends of Dundonald Castle on proposals to raise public awareness of the castle as part of the Dundonald Heritage Project. It was hoped that new evaluation would shed valuable light on the development of the site through time, as well as providing a catalyst for continuing local community engagement.^[12]

The investigation consisted of a geophysical survey (resistivity, gradiometry and ground-penetrating radar) performed by Rose Geophysics in early 2017, with subsequent public engagement events during Archaeology Month (September). This was followed by a series of excavations, including public engagement, carried out in August 2018 by HES Cultural Resources Team archaeologists along with CFA Archaeology.^[13]

The following extract alludes to an old Scottish folktale about the construction and origins of Dundonald Castle:

In Ayrshire there is an unknown rhyme that is probably very old:

  Donald Din
  Built his house without a pin,

alluding to Dundonald Castle, the ancient seat of King Robert II, and now the last remaining property in Ayrshire of the noble family who take their title from it. According to tradition, it was built by a hero named Donald Din, or Din Donald, and constructed entirely of stone, without the use of wood, a supposition countenanced by the appearance of the building, which consists of three distinct stories, arched over with strong stonework, the roof of one forming the floor of another.

Donald, the builder, was originally a poor man, but had the faculty of dreaming lucking dreams. Upon one occasion he dreamed, thrice in one night, that if he were to go to London Bridge, he would become a wealthy man. He went accordingly, saw a man looking over the parapet of the bridge, whom he accosted courteously, and, after a little conversation, entrusted with the secret of the occasion of his coming to London Bridge.

The stranger told him that he had made a very foolish errand, for he himself had once had a similar vision, which directed him to go to a certain spot in Ayrshire, in Scotland, where he would find a vast treasure, and, for his part, he had never once thought of obeying the injunction.

From his description of the spot, the sly Scotsman at once perceived that the treasure in question must be concealed in no other place than his own humble kail-yard [cabbage patch] at home, to which he immediately repaired, in full expectation of finding it. Nor was he disappointed; for, after destroying many good and promising cabbages, and completely cracking credit with his wife, who esteemed him mad, he found a large potful of gold coin, with the proceeds of which he built a stout castle for himself, and became the founder of a flourishing family.^[14]

Dundonald Castle features in the Jules Verne novel The Underground City.^[18] The castle is used as a beacon to drive ships into the coast, where the beacon lighters can then steal the cargo of the stricken ship. Within the novel, the castle is also linked to an underground city beneath Loch Katrine via a tunnel, perhaps adding to the common myth of the ley tunnel.