In 1882-4, Frances Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland described Castle Campbell like this:
Castle-Campbell, a ruined feudal fortalice in Dollar parish, Clackmannanshire, 1 mile N of Dollar town, by a pleasant pathway, formed in 1865. It crowns a round insulated mound, which seems to have been partly formed by the hand of Nature, and partly finished hy art. W and E are deep wooded ravines, down which run streams, the Burns of Sorrow and Care, that unite just below and form a considerable brook. ...
The mound on the Dollar side is nearly perpendicular, and from the loftier wooded hills behind was formerly disjoined by a ditch, passing down to the bottom of the glen on either side, which rendered the castle inaccessible except by means of a drawbridge, so that it was a place of very great strength. Of unknown antiquity, it formerly was called the Gloume or Castle-Gloom; but passing in 1493 to the Earls of Argyll, it changed its name to Castle-Campbell. In 1645 it was taken and burned by the Marquis of Montrose; and the chief part standing now is the keep, which contains a barrel-vaulted hall, and whose top is gained by a spiral staircase and commands a wide and very noble view. John Knox, in 1556, residing in the castle with the fourth Earl of Argyll, preached and dispensed the Lord's Supper on a greensward sloping from the castle's base to the brink of the neighbouring precipice; and in the hill side is a curious narrow chasm, called Kemp's Score, after a noted freebooter. The estate of Harviestoun, on which Castle Campbell stands, was purchased from the Taits in 1859 by the late Sir Andrew Orr. See Billings' Baronial Antiquities (1852).
Additional information about this locality is available for Dollar
Castle Campbell through time
Castle Campbell is now part of Clackmannanshire district. Click here for graphs and data of how Clackmannanshire has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Castle Campbell itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Castle Campbell in Clackmannanshire | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/26990
Date accessed: 18th April 2024
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