Hermitage Castle

Hermitage Castle stands in remote moorland in Liddesdale, a grim stone stronghold that once guarded one of the most bitterly contested frontiers between Scotland and England. Its beginnings date to around 1240, when Nicholas de Soulis raised an earth-and-timber castle here; the name is thought to derive from an Old French word for a guardhouse. In the mid-14th century that earlier fortification gave way to the stone tower house and keep, enclosed by a defensive wall, which survive today and were later much enlarged by the Douglas family. William Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, took the English-held castle in 1338 and notoriously left his rival, Sir Alexander Ramsay, to die imprisoned within its walls. In 1492 it passed to the Hepburns, Earls of Bothwell, and it was to the wounded James Hepburn that Mary, Queen of Scots rode from Jedburgh in 1566. Later held by the Scotts of Buccleuch, the castle fell into ruin after the crowns were united in 1603, was repaired in 1820, and passed to the nation in 1930. It is now cared for by Historic Environment Scotland and opens to visitors through the summer months.