Lochnaw Castle is a 16th-century tower house five miles from the town of Stranraer, in the historical county of Wigtownshire, Scotland.
Lochnaw Castle shows four periods of construction – a simple 16th-century keep, 17th- and 18th-century domestic dwellings, and a mansion-house, which was later demolished. There is a plaque bearing the date 1486, on the SE wall of the keep. A chapel, built in 1704, was demolished c. 1953.
An earlier, ruined castle stands on an island in the nearby Lochnaw Loch. A royal castle, this was given to the Agnews in 1363, but was sacked by Archibald The Grim, 3rd Earl of Douglas in 1390, and subsequently dismantled.
The Agnews remained in the new castle until 1948. The castle, located by the loch, is occupied as a private residence.
The Gravensteen is a castle in Ghent originating from the Middle Ages. The name means 'castle of the counts' in Dutch. Arnulf I (918–965), Count of Flanders, was the first to fortify this place, building a medieval bastion on this high sand dune, naturally protected by the river Leie and its marshy banks. This bastion consisted of a central wooden building and several surrounding buildings, also in wood.
In the early 11th century, the wooden building was replaced by a stone residence, consisting of three large halls that made up three storeys, connected by a stone stairwell. The monumental stone staircase, the light openings, the fireplaces built into the walls and the latrines were signs of considerable luxury and comfort in those days. There was probably also a tower.