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Photo: via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Magnificent late 18th-century mansion designed by Robert Adam as a bling-palace for the 10th Earl of Cassilis. With extensive gardens and parkland studded with follies, it often features as a film and TV location.
Culzean Castle is a castle overlooking the Firth of Clyde, near Maybole, Carrick, in South Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland. It is the former home of the Marquess of Ailsa, the chief of Clan Kennedy, but is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland. The clifftop castle lies within the 240 acres (97 ha) Culzean Castle Country Park, which also contains a walled garden, other estate buildings that are open to the public, shops and cafés, and a playground. The castle is open to the public throughout the summer, and the wider estate is open all year.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Rambling ruin of an abbey church, cloister and dovecote: it's pronounced "cross-rah-ul", commemorating St Riaghail or Regulus. In the 13th century the monks of Paisley Abbey were funded to build a branch abbey here, but they built only a small chapel and pocketed the rest. The subsequent legal ructions involved the Earl of Carrick, the Abbott of Paisley and the Pope, so it was a miracle any money was left over for building, but eventually a Cluniac monastery was established. It stood on the pilgrimage route between Paisley and Whithorn, probably not the reason King Edward I's army called by in 1307 and wrecked it, and it was re-built even better. The monastic order was dissolved at the Reformation, and in 1570 the Earl of Cassilis gained the lands by torturing the titular holder, as this worked quicker than going to law. Although the abbey was abandoned, its stone was left in place, so it's a substantial ruin. Some areas are closed because of unsafe masonry.
Burns Heritage Park
This is the only ticketed area of the Heritage Park, the thatched cottage where Burns was born and lived until he was 7, plus adjacent museum.
Botanical garden and conservatory. The Victorian original was replaced in 1955 to the same design; this fell derelict in 2005 but was restored in 2010.
White tees 6446 yards, par 71, with the smaller Seafield course at 5429 yards, par 67.
Small museum and gallery in an Adam-style mansion of 1760. It was built for Robert Hamilton of Bourtreehill, who got rich from slavery and sugar on his Jamaica plantations, and the name derives from his La Rochelle estate there. It was rebuilt in the 1830s; the family fortunes waxed then waned, and the mansion was gifted to the town in 1968. The surrounding park and woodland is accessible 24 hours.