Ardrossan Castle Heritage Society Logo

The Ardrossan Castle Heritage Society is a registered charity that was set up in 2012 with the aim of promoting Ardrossan Castle and educating the public on the history of this piece of North Ayrshire’s past.

“We were invited to set up as an organisation as the castle was in a state of disrepair and NAC were looking to work in collaboration with a community organisation to undertake activities that would help change people’s perceptions of the castle area into a place of value. At this time there was lots of anti social behaviour activities taking place on the hill and a clear risk to visitors from fallen masonry from the castle.“

The Society has 4 main aims:

  1. Research to advance understanding of the castle and hill
  2. Efforts to encourage community involvement and usage of Castle hill
  3. Educational activities to share our growing understanding of the space and people of past Ardrossan
  4. And finally, to improve the environment and landscape around castle hill to encourage the use of the space as a tourist attraction.
Dr Amanda Simpson at Ardrossan Castle

Over the years, the Society has taken part in archaeological digs, delivering hundreds of talks to community groups and schools, and have hosted a huge number of events at the castle. From fun-days to the Ardrossan Carnival.

Most recently members of ACHS researched the signatories of the Declaration of Arbroath with one of them being our own Fergus de Ardrossan the only signatory from the West of Scotland. As a result of this ACHS designed and produced a map for sale showing the location of all the signatories to the Declaration.

Members of the Society Giving a Tour of the Castle

The Society has a monthly meeting on the first Tuesday of every month, which the public is free to attend. You can follow the Society at their Facebook page to find out the location of the meeting and to keep up with the projects and events that the Society has coming up.

They are always looking for new members so don’t be shy about contacting them and getting involved!

If you’d like to learn more about the history of Ardrossan Castle itself, you can read more about it in our ‘Castle’ section HERE.