Towns > Helensburgh > 1875 - Battrum's guide and directory to Helensburgh and neighbourhood

TO ROW. 43
serves the preference bestowed upon it. On a summer even-
ing it is crowded with pedestrians, and on few days of the
year, and at few hours, will you not meet with walkers of
all classes. The road, once narrow, but lately considerably
improved leads along the raargin of the Gareloch to the
village of Row, a distance of about two miles from Helens-
burgh. Immediately on passing Helensburgh, Arden-
caple Castle and policies appear on the right hand side
of the road. The castle is a building of some antiquity, and
of some local historical interest. It stands on a rising knoll,
defended by an array of stately trees, by whose leafy branches
it is almost wholly concealed during summer. A cool shady
avenue, where lofty trees abound, leads up to it, but there
is nothing very imposing or architectually interesting in
the building itself The more ancient part of it has been
added to at various times, without due regard to the origi-
nal design ; and were it not for the clustering ivy, which
has
"Clasped the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms,
And sucked the joinings of the stones and rocks,
A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove, "
reaching, in some places to the very eaves, it would be rather
a dull unsightly mass of rough stones and mortar. The in-
terior, contrary to anticipation, almost corresponds with the
(exterior in containing little or nothing of interest to the
visitor. It lends nothing, but borrows much of its interest
and picturesqueness from the situation it occupies, and the
noble woods by which it is surrounded. Anciently Arden-
caple belonged to the Faslane branch of the Lennox family,
In the fourteenth century, it became the residence of The
M'Aulay, a chief of some importance, and who, with his
predecessors, occupy a somewhat conspicuous, though not