THE aristocratic owners of a historic castle are offering a £1,000 reward for information leading to the discovery of their beloved twin sister hunting dogs that were believed stolen at the start of the grouse shooting season.

The family of Sir Archibald and Lady Edmonstone believe there is a link between the suspected theft of the one-and-a-half year old cocker spaniels Gwen and Kate and the day they were taken, the Glorious Twelfth, one of the busiest days in the shooting season with large amounts of game being shot.

The dogs were taken from a garden on the Duntreath Castle estate, the couple's Stirlingshire home, as they were preparing for the start of the shooting season.

Duntreath Castle is known as a shooting estate and both Gwen and Kate were 'working' dogs who are trained to pick up grouse and pheasant.

Dru Edmonstone, the son of Sir Archibald, whose grandmother Alice Keppel was Edward VII's mistress and great-grandmother of Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Rothesay, has made an impassioned appeal for help in tracking the dogs down.

"We are desperately trying to find these dogs," he said. "They are valuable dogs, not only that they are our babies and we are missing them dreadfully. We are devastated, the whole family is devastated that the dogs have been stolen.

"It happened on Wednesday morning and a substantial amount of money is offered for their safe return."

He said the dogs had been out in the garden.

"One minute they were there and the next minute they were, we believe, lifted off," he said.

"They were stolen on the first day of grouse shooting season and they would have started working then. It could be connected to that.

"These types of working dogs are very valuable as it they take two years to train.

"If they had run away we would have found them by now. They are trained working dogs and they don't run off. We know that. They have definitely been stolen, definitely, there's no doubt about it.

"Every police station in Glasgow and Stirling has been contacted. Every dog firm, every animal shelter and it's on Facebook."

Duntreath Castle is the ancestral home, in unbroken succession, of the Edmonstone family, who were granted the lands by King Robert III in 1435 as a wedding gift for his grand-daughter.

Sir Archibald, 80, the 7th baronet of Durtreath, inherited the castle at the age of 22 and it has become a popular setting for weddings, seminars, private parties and corporate events.

In 1998 the castle played host to the Grouse Ball in aid of the Game Conservancy Trust.

A Police Scotland spokesman said: "We can confirm that we were made aware of two cocker spaniels reported missing in Blanefield on Wednesday, August 12.

"We have engaged further with the owner, who now believes the animals have been stolen and we are continuing with our inquiries."

The Edmonstone Baronetcy was a title created on May 20, 1774 for Archibald Edmonstone, who had been a Tory MP for Dunbartonshire and Ayr Burghs.

The estate of Duntreath lies on both sides of the Blane Valley some 12 miles to the north of the Glasgow. In the 1990s it comprised some 6,000 acres.