Mackintosh had been making sketches of details from Scottish Gothic and baronial buildings since the mid-1880s. This drawing was perhaps made on a sketching holiday in Galloway as another drawing of the nearby Sweetheart Abbey is dated October 1892 (Private Collection). This was one of the last of such holidays in Scotland; in 1894, 1895, 1897 and 1898 he made similar tours of the South of England.