The Castle of Easter Greenock

A more detailed history of one of the last castles to fall in Greenock can be found in Williamson's "Views and Reminiscences of Old Greenock", from where the image above is taken.

In our illuminated manuscript Clann Abhainn Cluaidh, we used a pencil sketch of the same piece, which had appeared in an 1809 edition of  "Scots Magazine" along with the following text

"The view here annexed represents the ruins of the Castle as they appeared about five years ago. The Tower has since fallen, and in the course of a few years the plough will probably pass over the remains. And thus the ancient glory of Greenock is now crowned with a colony of piggeries."
We so loved that final phrase that in a nod to the situationist movement, we got some teeshirts printed for when we were out doing research / collection 'and thus the ancient glory of Greenock is now crowned with a colony of piggeries'...surprisingly these never caught on. Our Captain Kidd 'there is nothing in this world that can make it appear I was guilty of piracy' teeshirts were marginally more popular. I'd still buy one.

This ruined barony played host to a traditional castle spirit, a grey figure (gender not identified, but generally speaking, you would expect it to be a Lady) still randomly spotted wandering around the well ploughed piggeries for a period after the collpase of the castle itself, in a similar vein to the two doomed lovers who wandered down at Cresswell long after their home had crumbled.