Your chance to own an anc estate for the cost of a Lon

An Argyll castle owned by the same Campbell family for almost 500 years is on sale for £650,000.

Kilberry Castle in South Knapdale has belonged to the Campbells of Kilberry since 1550 when the land was forfeited by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, and was recently the home of the late archaeologist and historian Marion Campbell, who died in 2000.

The price, the equivalent of a two-bedroom terraced house in London, will buy the historic, B-listed, four-storey 15th-century tower house with 14 bedrooms, five reception rooms, four bathrooms, billiard room, orangery, a three-bedroom holiday cottage, walled garden, and 21 acres of land near a beautiful white sandy beach, with stunning coastal views to Islay, Jura, Gigha and the Mull of Kintyre.

If you need more space a short distance away, within a spinney of woodland, there is planning consent to construct a four-bedroom house.

Paul Nicoll of Argyll land managers The Estates Office, which brought the castle to market with estate agent Knight Frank, said: ‘Obviously, at that price, we are expecting considerable interest, however, the castle does need significant repair and renovation, although in many ways this is an advantage as all of the features of the castle are still within the property, and it provides the opportunity for an individual to renovate, subject to the necessary consents, in their own image.

‘Whilst the castle has fallen into a state of disrepair it has retained many historic features throughout its four floors. The fireplaces in the library and the drawing room are made of Italian marble. They were custom made for John Campbell the 10th of Kilberry and his new wife during their honeymoon tour of Italy in 1871. Two of the bathrooms are located within the turrets.’

The sale is the latest chapter in Kilberry Castle’s long history dating back more than 1,000 years. The name Kilberry means ‘cella (cell or chapel) of Berach’. St Berach reputedly never visited Kilberry but was named after him in honour by a pupil. Most place names containing the element ‘Kil’ were formed by the ninth century, and there was almost certainly a church at Kilberry by then, probably where the ruins of the medieval church lie buried between the castle and the Campbell mausoleum.

Local tradition claims a monastery also – perhaps a small Celtic Christian community. There is no hard evidence for a medieval monastery, despite tales of a ‘stone room where the monks ate’ and rumours of treasure buried on the hill to escape raiders. Perhaps the castle began as a defensive work to guard the church and its people from the Viking raids that swept the coasts from 800 AD.

In 1493 the Lord of the Isles forfeited his Knapdale lands to the crown, and James IV ordered the Earl of Argyll, his chancellor, to install reliable tenants – junior family members of the Campbell clan. The Campbells of Kilberry took up the ‘middle management’ of its lands in about 1550 and it has been in the family ever since.

Captain Proby, an English pirate, attacked and burned the castle in 1513 – an event recorded above the front door. During the civil war 164345

Kilberry Castle retains many of its historic features, inclu pages from the London Illustrated News, from when yo scarlet fever. The beautiful sandy beach offers stunning

the castle was besieged by a royalist contingent from the islands. The Campbell mausoleum was built by Dugald Campbell of Kilberry, a privateer, in 1733. Through surviving family letters there are all sorts of tantalising glimpses of mysteries. He started off with a privateer’s commission and reputedly somehow got into a fortune and lived in Florence as a captain – thanks no doubt to that old naval toast ‘a long war and a sickly season’ ensuring promotion.

Captain Dugald Campbell later had command of the ‘Walpole’ in the Mediterranean and had