Dunbar Castle

Dunbar Castle stands in ruin above the harbour on Scotland’s south-east coast, its red-stone remnants clinging to a rocky point where the land meets the North Sea. A stronghold was first raised here around 1070 by Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, who had fled England and received East Lothian lands from Malcolm III. Its position near the border made it one of the most contested fortresses in the country. In 1338 it withstood a long English siege led by the Earl of Salisbury, held throughout by Agnes Randolph — remembered as Black Agnes of Dunbar — until Sir Alexander Ramsay broke through with relief. James IV restored the castle in 1497, employing the mason Walter Merlioun to finish its gatehouse. It later became entangled in the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, who visited several times and was brought here by the Earl of Bothwell in April 1567, shortly before the Battle of Carberry Hill. That association proved fatal to the castle: in December 1567 the Scottish Parliament ordered it demolished, and within a year its stone was being carried off to build the quay at Leith.