Kerelaw
Castle is today a
ruin, with three walls surviving in a state of decay. Beautiful
gothic windows
still adorn one wall, believed to have been inspired by those at
Kilwinning
Abbey (and are proof that much of the castle was built at various
different
points in history). An ancient footbridge is situated next to the
ruin and is
still intact and walkable, but the castle itself is fenced off to
protect both
the public from falling stone and the castle from vandalism.
The castle's former walled garden is now occupied by houses, but a
single wall
still remains.
The castle is said to
have been owned by the Lockharts as far back as 1191, after Stephen
Lockhart
obtained a grant of land in Ayrshire. This land would be named
Stevenstoune
(later Stevenston) after himself, and their manor-place named
Kerelaw. The
castle was eventually passed on to the Campbells of Loudoun and
later to the
Cuninghame Earl of Glencairn. It was in the Cuninghames possession
in 1488 that
the castle was sacked and burned by the Clan Montgomery during a
long-term feud
between the two families. The Clan Cunningham burned the original
Eglinton
Castle to the ground in revenge in 1528.
Kerelaw was rebuilt sometime after 1488 and is reported to have
contained a
number of carved coats of arms taken from the old Kilwinning
Abbey,[2] in 1609
was bought by Sir Thomas Boyd and soon after sold again to Sir
William
Cunninghame of Cunninghamhead. Thirty years later the castle and
the nearby
lands were bought by Sir Robert Cunninghame of Auchenharvie. In
1655 Kerelaw
Castle was purchased by John Hamilton (grandfather of Alexander
Hamilton), who
changed the name of the castle and its grounds to Grange, after the
family home
in Kilmarnock. The castle became the residence of the Hamilton
family until 1787
when another Alexander Hamilton (second cousin of the American
politician),
built Kerelaw (or Grange) House nearby, with the castle quickly
becoming
disused.
The house, the castle and the grounds were all sold in 1838 to
Gavin Fullerton
after Alexander's death. Fullerton soon restored the original name
of Kerelaw.
Today the castle ruin is owned by North Ayrshire Council, and the
grounds are
home to various houses, farms and Kerelaw Residential School (now
demolished).
Kerelaw House was demolished in the early
1970s.
style='mso-ansi-language:EN'>
The cache itself begins
at Kerelaw
castle, Co-ordinates are for parking, to get the location for the
first waypoint solve the Sudoku puzzle and
input the appropriate figures into the co-ordinates
N 55.AB.CDE
W 004.FG.HI0
>
Blank grids can be
downloaded and
printed from http://urbanrim.org.uk/blankgrid.htm
There is a special
bonus cache
with a special FTF
prize if you are
really good at Sudoku.
** Note for this cache
you will
need
Pen
Blank grids
Patience
Good luck
See the attatched
picture for the first Grid