Dunoon

Dunoon, a police and municipal burgh of Argyllshire, Scotland, on the western shore of the Firth of Clyde, opposite to Gourock. Pop. (1901) 6779. Including Kirn and Hunter’s Quay, it presents a practically continuous front of seaside villas. The mildness of its climate and the beauty of its situation have made it one of the most prosperous watering-places on the west coast. The principal buildings are the parish church, well-placed on a hill overlooking the pier, convalescent homes, Cottage and Victoria fever hospitals, and the town house. On a conical hill above the pier stand the remains of Dunoon Castle, the hereditary keepership of which was conferred by Robert Bruce on the family of Sir Colin Campbell of Loch Awe, an ancestor of the duke of Argyll. It was visited by Queen Mary in 1563, and in 1643 was the scene of the massacre of the Lamonts by the Campbells. The grounds have been laid out as a recreation garden. Near the hill stands the modern castle. Facing the pier a statue was erected in 1898 of Mary Campbell, Burns’s “Highland Mary,” who was a native of Dunoon. The town itself is of modern growth, having been a mere fishing village at the beginning of the 19th century. There is frequent communication daily by steamer with the railway piers at Craigendoran and Gourock, and Glasgow merchants are thus enabled to reside here all the year round. Hunter’s Quay is the yachting headquarters, the Royal Clyde Yacht Club’s house adjoining the pier. Kilmun, on the northern shore of Holy Loch, a portion of the parish of Dunoon and Kilmun, contains the ruins of a Collegiate chapel founded in 1442 by Sir Duncan Campbell of Loch Awe and used as the burial-ground of the Argyll family.

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