Neidpath Castle

Neidpath Castle stands above the River Tweed about a mile west of Peebles, a tall L-plan tower house with distinctive rounded corners. An earlier castle on the site is credited to Simon Fraser, High Sheriff of Tweeddale, in the 1260s, but the present building was raised in the late fourteenth century by Sir William de Haya, whose family had come to the property through marriage to Margaret Fraser. That joined inheritance is recorded above the entrance archway, where the goat’s head of the Hays sits beside the strawberries of the Frasers. Inside, vaulted chambers, a pit dungeon and a scattering of narrow, iron-barred windows speak to a building meant as much for defence as for residence. Mary, Queen of Scots came here in 1563, and James VI in 1587. During Cromwell’s campaign of 1650 the castle was battered, its west wing and older tower taking damage. By 1790 the upper storeys had fallen in, and when Wordsworth passed in 1803 he was moved to condemn the felling of the estate’s trees. Later held by the Douglases and then the Earls of Wemyss, Neidpath today serves as a wedding venue and filming location. It is also said to be haunted by Jean Douglas, the “Maid of Neidpath”.