Today was all about one of the reasons we picked Scotland for vacation (besides free airline tickets)—Thomaston Castle. As I mentioned yesterday, Thomaston is the ancestral castle of the McAlvanys. We heard about it years ago while doing a lineage search online and determined to visit one day. So today is that day. Thomaston is on someone’s estate, so we were going to need to go and ask permission of the owners in order to walk around the grounds. We thought that, given it’s a Sunday morning, it may not be wise to show up too early for this purpose. We thought we might sleep in a bit, eat breakfast and then go over to the Culzean Castle estate before heading over to see Thomaston. So that’s exactly what we did. We got to the Culzean estate about 10 am—just at opening—and headd for the castle. The grounds here are impressive and extensive. You could spend a whole day enjoying everything it has to offer. By the car park there is a deer park where a herd of red deer range. We realized that these are only the second herd for us to see while here in Scotland—the first being upon arrival to the Highlands. We hadn’t seen any others the whole time. They are a ruddy red in color, but we did note that in size they are much smaller than our local mule deer in the Rockies. We walked over to the castle and joined a tour in progress. It’s a perfectly preserved castle (thanks to the Scottish National Trust)—a true specimen of grandeur. It is tied to the Kennedy lineage (no relation to JFK, if you were wondering as they are Irish, not Scot, Kennedys), and like all lineages full of tales to tell. We learned that aristocracy runs in a certain order, specifically: King; Prince; Duke; Marquees; then Earl. The Kennedys were Earls until being promoted later to Marquees. The family was rich by all means, and like many of the aristocracy throughout the Empire, they had their “hands” in everything. In this, I mean especially, slavery and smuggling. Yes, smuggling. In fact, the castle is perched up high on a rocky cliff and below at the foot of the cliff there are caves where the family hid their smuggling booty. Then there’s the unfortunate slavery connection. The family themselves did not own slaves, but they did own the ships that took the slaves from Africa to America and England. Surprisingly enough though, their “real” money came from two sources: farming the land and ship building. Their estate was quite expansive and they brought in most of their money this way, but in the Victorian times the Marquees was a mariner and ship builder and started the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company out of Troon which became the most respected ship building company in the UK. Anyway, the castle and grounds are impressive and we really could have spent a day here. There is even a wing of the castle given to General/President Eisenhower in gratitude for his leadership as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during WWII. There is a great exhibit on Eisenhower, as well, worth a visit if you are a WWII buff. We chose to journey onward to Thomaston about 1pm. The estate is literally next door to the Culzean estate, and after hunting down the farm hand we found out that Thomaston sits on the 10,000 acre Cassillis estate. The drive from Culzean here is tree lined with a magical green canopy of branches and leaves ascending overhead. As you open out of the trees Thomaston sits just off the road about 100 feet. It’s a derelict castle with a roof having fallen eons ago, and a virtual forest having grown in the interior.
There are tree branches plunging towards the sky out of small windows. The whole of the place is not massive, but I’m sure it was impressive in the medieval era. 
On the internet I Googled “Thomaston” and there are drawings by an artist of what he thinks it must have looked like in its hayday. There would have been turrets at every corner and a grand entrance. David and I fancied what it would be like to one day buy the castle and completely renovate it. That was before we found out it lay on a 10,000 acre estate. Well, one can dream, right? There is a Scottish castle in the East of Scotland that Dave and I came across a year ago or so. It is the most amazing and inspiring renovation we’ve ever seen. It was a shell of a ruined castle before a man with a vision came and completely restored it. Now it’s one of the most beautiful medieval castles one can stay in for holiday. We walked around Thomaston and I took pictures. It’s a sad little place now with no on to care for it. There is a shed, or “leanto”, attached to the back of it where miscellaneous farm equipment is kept. There’s a stone kennel to the side of it where the ground’s keeper has his hunting dogs. It is wholly forgotten among the current business of the estate. It stands only as a reminder of something that once was and will never be again. In some ways, it’s a mystery like Nessie or the Big Gray Man. We want to believe it was something grand when it might not have been. When we’d had our fill we left and drove out towards Ayr searching for kilts and tartans on a Sunday. This was ill planned on our part, as not many shops are open on Sundays here. We take for granted that Sundays in America offer every kind of diversion—including shopping. The shop we wanted was indeed closed, so we made ourselves a lovely drive from Ayr to Alloway, must a mile away. They are both charming villages with parks and pretty homes. Trees are everywhere—and every kind of tree all blending together to form a very harmonious picture. We came upon the Brig O’ Doon hotel in Alloway on the River Doon. No relation to the musical of the same name. They were having a wedding down by the river, as most hotels do during the summer weekends. The waitress in the coffee shop there on the grounds said the hotel has weddings booked every Saturday till October. Weddings are impressive here, with many men in kilts of their gamily tartan and women in hats. My first time to Scotland was when I was in high school and an older friend of our family was marrying a Scot from Aberdeen. I was one of her bridesmaids and I remember the whole experience like it was a fairytale. Everything about it was traditional, and I remember dancing with the men in kilts and wondering if they wear any underwear beneath those kilts. This wedding reminds me of that day. Just beyond the hotel is the Brig O’Doon, or the Bridge over the River Doon. 
Again, no relation to the musical. And across the street is the Burns National Monument and Heritage Park. Burns made the Brig O'Doon famous in his poem Tam O'Shanter (though it should be mentioned that, in it's own right, it is a surviving single-arched medieval bridge). I haven’t read a lot of Burns, but I think I’ve read every work by Miss Jane Austen. And the countryside around Ayrshire reminds me of the places she lived and wrote about. I think David thinks Austen’s works have ruined me. I mean, I love this countryside more than any. If you asked me for an ideal landscape—this is what I would describe: Rolling green hills, green trees of every variety and shade (but especially Oak trees), farms and meadows, and streams running through them. And old stone bridges and country homes hidden down long drives. My United Kingdom is the Georgian UK. And our drive out of Ayrshire today harkened me to thoughts of Austen’s characters and the Georgian world I still find so fascinating. Of course, something we saw all too often in Scotland—and saw twice today—was churches boarded up or changed into another use. In the picturesque village of Maybole the central church of Scotland was completely boarded up and not in use anymore. And just up the road in Minishant there is a de-consecrated church that has been made into a tandoori Indian restaurant (of all things!—it seems sacreligious). All reminders and sign posts of the post-Christian world of Europe. We headed on north to Glasgow to stay our last night at the Holiday Inn Glasgow Airport—just steps away from the terminal. We watched another Rugby match—this one between Portugal and Scotland (Scotland won). We ate at the bar and had a Guinness on draught which takes so much better than out of a can in America. On draught, there is no bitter aftertaste—just smooth delicious flavor. But I digress. We then caught a little of Lord of the Rings III beore bed—which seemed a very fitting end to our journeys. Our grand tour of Scotland had come to an end, and I must admit we were homesick—particularly for our son. So this is where my blog will end. Tomorrow morning we’ll head out on a BA flight back to the US (hopefully uneventful), and after a long day’s journey we’ll once more settle in to a night’s rest. I want to leave writing with something I read in The Road North, by the editor, June Skinner Sawyers: “The Scotland we think we know is as much a product of our collective imagination as it is an actual place. It can be whatever we want it to be: urban bustle, quiet retreat, rugged outpost. Admittedly, much has changed since the early travelers first scribbled down their initial impressions. And yet much remains the same. The mountains and lochs that Boswell and Johnson witnessed with their own eyes are still there for all to see. The inhabitants, although more sophisticated and very much a part of the modern world, are still Scots—with all that entails. And countless people—natives and visitors alike—still travel to this ancient and complex land in search of something quite apart from the ordinary. The road north still beckons.”..and by the way, if you were wondering, "Touch Not a Catt Bot A Targe" is the MacIlvain chattan, or motto (as it is a sept of the MacBain clan). It means literally: Don't touch a cat without a glove.
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