Kilbirnie House

Kilbirnie House is a late 15th-century tower house of rectangular plan, with a block added at right angles in 1627. The structure is built of rubble with ashlar dressings. The original tower was four storeys high, containing two vaulted floors. It originally had an entrance via a basement door in the northeast angle, and a circular mural stair in the same location, although this stair is now barely distinguishable. A long, rectangular block was later added, connected to the southeast corner of the tower by a round stair tower. The added block features a central entrance beneath a round-headed arch. It originally had corbelled angle towers; some of this corbelling remains, but only a wall above the doorway stands above the ground floor level. The building was destroyed by fire in 1757. There are some surviving garden walls to the south, and the house is approached from the southeast via a broad, tree-lined avenue. Kilbirnie House was likely built by Malcolm Crawford, the first of the Crawfords of Kilbirnie, and extended by John Crawford of Kilbirnie.