Mugdock Country Park

Since the weather was still nice, regardless of the forecast of rain, we headed out towards a garden centre, then Lorna remembered seeing one on the way to Aberfoyle. We've driven past it so many times and I'd remembered it from my youth as we sometimes used to fish in Mugdock Loch. We never caught anything as far as I can remember though! So we headed off to Mugdock Country Park to see what it had to offer for an hour or two.

The first surprise was that was no entry charge. There's a box for donations, and we popped some cash in, but with all there is on offer for kids it seemed unusual. I mean there's two castles, orienteering, archery, educational displays, woodland walks, a pond, a loch and a pretty busy event calendar. Oh, and there's a tearoom so there's scones as well.

The main castle, Mugdock Castle is a ruin dating back to 1372 and was the ancient seat of Clan Graham. There's also a second ruin called Craigend Castle, which is actually a 19th century mansion house built in the Regency Gothic style. You can wander freely through the Mugdock Castle ruins and you can even get into the tower on weekends but Craigend Castle is fenced off as it looks ready to topple anytime and is now only home to a murder of crows.

Craigend Castle

Anyway, we had a decent wander round the grounds and the loch and then a nice tea and a scone so it passed a few hours quite pleasantly and we'll probably go back to investigate some more.