Pollok - Pollok Castle

Pollok Castle

Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD) undertook work on the Pollok Castle site and history in 2000 and a summary is available at http://www.damstodarnley.org. The article has numerous references to "Pollock" however the correct spelling is "Pollok", without the "c". There are also some historical inaccuracies which are corrected below.

The castle was originally a tower dating from the 11th Century. The castle was demolished and rebuilt as a large stately house 1686by Sir Robert Pollok. It was completely destroyed by fire in 1882 (after remaining empty for some while) and then rebuilt again shortly after in the Scottish Baronial style, incorporating some of the surviving elements of the earlier structure, by Mrs Ferguson Pollok of that Ilk.

It was finally abandoned in the 1940s and fell in to ruin thereafter. Some of the ruins were dynamited in the 70s and a large prefabricated house erected on the castle foundations by Mr Greer who purchase Pollok Castle Estate from Glasgow council. The gate houses at each end of the estate were also rebuilt along with the gardener’s house and the castle stables and sold on as private residences.

The prefabricated house was removed and the site cleared in the early 1990s and the castle was again rebuilt in 2003, in the Scottish Adam style by Alex Hewitt and renamed Pollok Castle House. Some of the original foundations and castle walls remain, on which the house has been built, notably a portion of the five meter high north moat wall still remains.