Balloch Castle

Balloch Castle stands at the southern end of Loch Lomond in West Dunbartonshire. It is an early 19th-century country house built by John Buchanan of Ardoch on the site of a much older castle. The original fortress dated from the 13th century and belonged to the Lennox family for centuries. John Buchanan demolished the ruins and commissioned Robert Lugar to design the present Tudor Gothic building. The castle has been owned by Glasgow City Corporation since 1915 and is now part of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. It is a category A listed building and its designed landscape appears on Scotland’s Inventory of Gardens. The Lennox family received the lands in 1072 and built the first castle around 1238. After the Stewarts of Darnley acquired it in the 15th century, the property passed to the Colquhouns in 1652. John Buchanan, a Glasgow merchant and banker, bought the estate in 1800 and employed Lugar to create the asymmetrical castellated house. Buchanan also planted ornamental trees and laid out parkland around the new building. In 1830 he bought the nearby Boturich estate and rebuilt its castle, later selling Balloch. Visitors find two main pleasure gardens flanking the house. The northern garden displays rhododendrons and azaleas that bloom in late May and early June. To the south lies a walled garden filled with flowers and shrubs, surrounded by further ornamental planting. Between them stretches grassed parkland with specimen trees leading down to the loch shore. Ornamental and semi-natural woodlands frame the grounds, which were restored in 2001 with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Scottish Enterprise. The restored landscape reopens lost views and improves woodland management across the estate.