This is the most photographed spot on the Carrick coast and, unusually for something surrounded by a championship golf course and a five-star hotel, it costs nothing to reach.
The castle
Turnberry Castle was a Carrick and later Kennedy stronghold on a rocky point above the sea. By tradition Robert the Bruce was born here in 1274, to Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, and it was to Turnberry that he returned in 1307 at the start of the campaign that ended at Bannockburn. The castle was never rebuilt after being slighted, overtaken by Coif — later Culzean — and Dunure.
What survives is fragmentary and easy to miss: humps and hollows of masonry immediately north of the lighthouse, with one short stretch still standing as wall. The ground there is steep, rocky and unstable, with sharp drops to the sea, so admire it from the level rather than scrambling about on it.
The lighthouse
The white tower was built in 1873 by David and Thomas Stevenson — Thomas being Robert Louis Stevenson's father — on the site of the castle's outer defences. It stands 24 metres tall, its light 29 metres above the sea, and it was automated in 1986. It is category B listed.
You cannot go inside. The keepers' houses have been converted into private accommodation associated with the Turnberry resort, and the halfway house serving the golf course sits alongside. What you can do is walk right up to it, which is the point.
Getting there
The usual approach is the public path from Maidens, about a mile and a half each way along the shore and across the edge of the Ailsa course. It is part of the Ayrshire Coastal Path, and the right of way is long established — but you are crossing a working championship links, so keep to the marked route, watch for play, and give way to golfers. Allow an hour to an hour and a half return, more if you stop, which you will.
Park in Maidens rather than at the resort. From Girvan it is twelve minutes by car, or you can walk the whole way up the coast from the town — see Girvan to Turnberry.
When to come
Evening. The lighthouse faces west with Ailsa Craig sitting behind it on the horizon, and an hour before sunset on a clear night is as good as photography gets on this coast. It is exposed, so take a jacket whatever the forecast.
