continued. The Gothic script and positioning on the stone suggests that a secondary use from a tomb and this would be seen as doubly potent if it was once housed within the nearby Kilwinning Abbey as it would be seen to have been infused with holy energies. The old main entrance to the keep was at the east angle of the north side and later entered into a courtyard. The ground level is now considerably raised up and only the arch of the door can be seen. Mansion This wing was constructed in 1627 at right angles to the old keep using rubble faced with dressed with sandstone ashlar. A door was broken through from the hall of the old keep to a staircase in the mansion house. The mansion was a fine specimen of 17th-century architecture. It had turrets corbelled out at hall level and these contained closets. The front door was set in an unusual shallow projection and a narrow back door at the north facing aspect led into a courtyard. Two cellars existed with a passage between them that connected with the main staircase. The hall in the old tower may have been used as a dining area and the large room in the mansion house utilised as a drawing-room. The most southerly turret and a large part of mansion house wing fell at some point between 1956 and 1964. Fire The buildings were destroyed by fire early in the morning of 1 May 1757 during construction works, and never rebuilt. A servant who was going to the stables saw that smoke was rising from the roof and gave the alarm. The 19th Earl of Crawfurd, his infant daughter Jean (later a Countess of Eglinton) and domestics had little time to escape the ferocity of the flames. The family moved to the Kilbirnie Barony manse at first and later settled at Bourtreehill House near Irvine. Lady Crawfurd was the eldest daughter and heiress of Robert Hamilton of Bourtreehill. Regarding the cause of the fire, the story goes that before going to bed, a lady of the house threw melted grease from the socket of a large candlestick into a fire grate in a lower storey of the house and the ensuing flames set alight the unswept chimney flue, the fire rapidly entering the new mansion wing through windows in the garret that had been left open by