Threave Castle - 4 Things to Know Before Visiting

Threave Garden is a series of gardens owned and managed by the National Trust for Scotland, which is rich in diversity, with areas such as an informal rose garden, a wildflower meadowland and a one acre walled garden with a temperate glasshouse collection. It is also well known for its great displays of daffodils. The garden also feature many champion trees from around the world.

Threave House was built by William Gordon, a Liverpool businessman who had bought the Threave Estate as a summer home for his extensive family in 1867. He preferred this location for the house to the lower parts of the estate extending to the River Dee and including Threave Island and Threave Castle. There is also a visitor centre and plant centre. The wider estate is managed as a nature reserve and is home to bats and ospreys, and includes part of the Loch Ken and River Dee Marshes Special Prot

Buittle Castle, also known historically as Botle or Botel Castle, is a ruined castle in Galloway, south-west Scotland. It is located in the valley of the River Urr, 1 kilometre west of Dalbeattie. The castle is within the parish of Buittle, in the traditional county of Kirkcudbrightshire and is a scheduled ancient monument. The ruins remained in the possession of the Maxwells of Munches until 1984 when they were gifted to Balliol College, Oxford by Peter Maxwell QC of Munches himself a Balliol

Loch Ken, located in the picturesque Glenkens, is a 9 mile long freshwater loch, that is fed from the north by the Water of Ken. It is popular spot for water skiing, fishing, and sailing and these activities and more are served by the Galloway Activity Centre located on the banks of the loch. It is part of the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere

Orchardton Tower is an unusual free-standing round tower, the only one of its type in Scotland. It operated as a fortified residence for a nobleman named John Cairns, who may have acquired the land after James II’s overthrow of the Douglases in 1455. is remarkable as the only cylindrical tower house in Scotland. Orchardton Tower is in the care of Historic Environment Scotland as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The Harbour Cottage Trust was established in the former 'Harbour Inn' in 1957 and acquired a small collection. The building is now run as a gallery hired out to individual artists and exhibitors. The ‘gallery-run’ Summer and Autumn Exhibitions feature mainly local professional and amateur artists by invitation. An annual ‘Open’ Exhibition, aimed at encouraging and supporting new and developing artists, takes place early Summer and is open to any artist over the age of 16 wherever they live.