Castle of Park, Tower house and vacation home in Old Luce, Scotland.
Castle of Park is a four-story stone tower with a garret in Old Luce, featuring stepped gables and a steep slate roof that overlooks Luce Bay. The building is compact with rooms arranged across its levels, connected by internal stairs.
Thomas Hay, son of the last abbot of Glenluce Abbey, built the tower in 1590. Stones from the neighboring Abbey may have been reused in its construction.
The castle reflects how Scottish landowners lived in the 1500s, with built-in stone window seats, fireplaces, and painted wooden ceilings that show the tastes of that period. These details give a sense of daily life for families of rank in the Lowlands.
The building functions today as a vacation rental with vaulted rooms on the ground floor and bedrooms across the upper stories. Access is by a country road, and visiting is arranged through accommodation booking.
Each bedroom originally had its own private toilet and garderobe, an unusual comfort for a 16th-century Scottish tower. This shows that the builder had wealth and thought carefully about living standards.
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