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Castle Kennedy is a ruined 17th-century tower house, about 4.8 km east of Stranraer. The property belonged to the Kennedys from 1482; the castle was started in 1607, on the site of an earlier stronghold, by John Kennedy, 5th Earl of Cassilis. After a brief period in the hands of the Hamiltons of Bargany the property passed to the Dalrymples of Stair around 1677. The castle was gutted by fire in 1716, and it was never restored.
This E-plan castle was originally on an island in a loch. The main block has four storeys and an attic; there are two five-storey projecting square wings; and two seven-storey square towers in the re-entrant angles. One of the seven-storey towers contains the main turnpike stair. Three-storey wings are a later addition.
There are large windows, evenly spaced, and shot-holes. From the main entrance a vaulted passage runs through the basement; it communicated with a newel-stair in the south west re-entrant turret. All of the basement rooms, including the large kitchen, are vaulted.
It is thought that the public rooms were situated within the main block, which had a single large chamber at each level. There were a series of bedchambers and associated closets in the wings. There is no evidence of any enclosure; there is a walled garden to the south which dates from the 18th century.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.