Buchanan Castle

Buchanan Castle is the ruin of a large Early Scots Baronial mansion designed by William Burn between 1852 and 1858. It was built for the Duke of Montrose to replace an earlier house that was destroyed by fire in 1850. The castle became a hotel in 1925 and was later used as a military hospital during the Second World War, where Rudolf Hess was briefly treated after his plane crash-landed in Scotland in 1941. The roof was removed and the castle was partially demolished in 1954. It is located at the center of a large estate that features mid and later 20th-century houses built on its former garden grounds. Buchanan Castle contributes to the landscape and is an example of the work of one of Scotland's most significant early to mid-19th-century architects. The policies surrounding Buchanan Castle are included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland.

Designed by Burn, Buchanan Castle was a large, asymmetrical country house with two courtyards, typical of the mansions of its time and particularly of Burn's designs, which accommodated the complex social protocols of the era. The main house was roughly rectangular, with smaller wings extending to the northwest and northeast. It was two stories high, featuring decorated Renaissance-style pedimented dormers that broke the eaves, and had bartizan towers at most corners. The entrance elevation on the southeast was dominated by a square tower, flanked by bartizan towers on the left and a round, conical-roofed corner tower on the right.

While some of the service wings have been demolished, most of the walls remain up to the wall head, along with many of the dormer pediments and bartizans. Some interior walls are also still standing.