The Castle of Ayora was built probably in the mid-13th century, after the Reconquista, on the site of an ancient Arabian fort. The architectural ensemble was composed of the four-storey residence-palace, two fortified towns, and one large keep, as well as other rooms for the soldiers and serfdom, aljibes (European Middle Ages castle cisterns that collected the rain water to provide drinking water to the castles) and gardens. This was surrounded by around 1,000 m of defensive walls and defensive towers.
The castle was reduced to ruins by the troops of Philip V of Spain, in the War of the Spanish Succession, but its profile and its vast size are still noticeable. The keep, of square plan, the Puerta Falsa (Fake Door), commissioned by the Marchioness of Cenete in the 16th century on which it was her coat of arms, as well as paintings, defensive walls, buckets, moats, and cisterns, stand out in the remains of the castle.
References:Dryburgh Abbey on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders was founded in 1150 in an agreement between Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland, and the Premonstratensian canons regular from Alnwick Abbey in Northumberland. The arrival of the canons along with their first abbot, Roger, took place in 1152.
It was burned by English troops in 1322, after which it was restored only to be again burned by Richard II in 1385, but it flourished in the fifteenth century. It was finally destroyed in 1544, briefly surviving until the Scottish Reformation, when it was given to the Earl of Mar by James VI of Scotland. It is now a designated scheduled monument and the surrounding landscape is included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland.
David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan bought the land in 1786. Sir Walter Scott and Douglas Haig are buried in its grounds.