Knock Old Castle is a Grade B listed building in the North Ayrshire local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 14 April 1971.
Knock Old Castle
- WRENN ID
- nether-tracery-vale
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- North Ayrshire
- Constituency
- North Ayrshire and Arran MP: Irene Campbell (Lab)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 14 April 1971
- Address
- Knock Old Castle, KA30 8SE
- OS grid reference
- NS 193 631
- Coordinates
- 55.82731, -4.8858
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
Knock Old Castle is a tower house, likely dating to 1603 and 1604, although it was repaired and altered in 1853. The building consists of a rectangular, three-story and attic tower (now reduced in size), with remnants of a ragged wall to the east. A screen wall, originally part of a courtyard, extends south from a tall, conical-roofed, circular angle turret. All surfaces are rubble-built with ashlar dressings.
The tower house has a round-headed doorway on its south wall, and a single roll-moulded window at each level. A dovecot is incorporated into the dormer head. Other external features include a moulded eaves cornice, crowstepped gables, and coped end stacks. Slate roofs cover the structure.
The west gable and west elevation of the angle turret have a single light at each level above the ground floor. The angle turret has a segmental-arched east-facing door, a door above it that opens onto the screen wall’s parapet walkway, and three circular hand-gun ports and two slits on its outer west face. The screen wall’s outer face is finished with corbelled and crenellated parapets linked to a conical-roofed, corbelled round turret to the south.
The nearby new Knock Castle was designed by J T Rochead around 1852, and he may also have been responsible for the alterations to the Old Castle.
Local climate
Knock Old Castle sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,690 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 99% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 96% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 43 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 84% of listed buildings. Of these, 24 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.2°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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