Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Cassillis House

Cassillis House, a noble mansion, romantically situated on the left bank of the winding Doon, and on the NW verge of Kirkmichael parish, Ayrshire, 4 miles NE of Maybole, and 1 mile E by S of Cassillis station, this being 6½ miles S of Ayr. The body of it seems to belong to the middle of the 15th century, and a fine addition was made in 1830; around it are many magnificent trees-an ash, 95 feet high and 24¾ in circumference, with the 'dool' and two other sycamores, which, 67,77, and 85 feet high, girth 181/3, 13¼, and 17 feet at 1 foot from the ground. In the reign of David II. (1329-71) the lands of 'Castlys' came to Sir John Kennedy by his wife, Marjory de Montgomery; and Cassillis now is one of the seats of Archibald Kennedy, Marquis of Ailsa, who also is fourteenth Earl of Cassillis, the earldom having been granted to David, third Lord Kennedy, in 1509. In 1537, Buchanan, tutor to the third Earl, Gilbert, here wrote his Somnium, a bitter satire against the Franciscan friars. Gilbert, fourth Earl, the so-called ' King of Carrick,' is infamous for his cruelty to the commendator of Crossraguel; as is John, his successor, for the part that he played in the Auchendrane Tragedy. But of Cassillis' memories none is so celebrated as that enshrined in the ballad of Johnnie -Faa. It tells how the Gipsies came to Lord Cassillis' gate, and oh ! but they sang bonnie; how the lady, with all her maids, tripped down the stair, and, yielding to glamour, followed the Gipsy laddie; how her lord, coming home at even, pursued the fugitives; and how-

They were fifteen well-made men,
Black but very bonnie;
and they all lost thair lives for ane,
The Earl of Cassillis' Ladye.

In his History of the Gipsies (2d ed., New York, 1878), Mr Simson accepts the theory which makes this countess the lady of the ` grave and solemn ' sixth earl, Lady Jean Hamilton, daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Haddington; her lover, one Sir John Faa or Fall of Dunbar; and the date of the episode, 1643. But Mr Jas. Paterson overthrows that theory in his History of Ayrshire (1858), showing that Lady Jean died in 1642, and was tenderly mourned by the widowed earl. If the story have any historic groundwork, it should rather be referred to the former half of the sixteenth century-to the days when James V. granted letters under the Great Seal to 'oure louit Johnne Faw, Lord and Erle of Litill Egipt.' At least, the Dool Tree remains, on which the Gipsies were hanged; not a half mile off are the 'Gipsies' Steps,' where the Earl came up with his betrayer. See also Culzean; the Scots Magazine for 1817; and the Historie of the Kennedyis, edited by R. Pitcairn (Edinb. 1830).


(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a noble mansion"   (ADL Feature Type: "residential sites")
Administrative units: Kirkmichael ScoP       Ayrshire ScoCnty

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