Bothwell Castle

Bothwell Castle stands in ruins above the River Clyde in South Lanarkshire, where its walls once guarded a strategic crossing. Walter de Moray began building it in the thirteenth century, raising a great circular donjon of coursed red sandstone that originally rose some 82 feet, with walls fifteen feet thick. The plan echoed the mighty castles of Coucy, Kildrummy and Dirleton, though its ambitious scheme was never fully realised as first conceived. The castle changed hands repeatedly during the Wars of Scottish Independence. Scots besieged its English garrison for fourteen months in 1298–99, and Edward I retook it in 1301 with an army thousands strong and siege engines. After Bannockburn its constable surrendered to the Scots, who deliberately damaged the stronghold to deny it to the enemy; in 1337 Sir Andrew Murray pulled the western half of the donjon down into the river. From 1362 the Douglas family held Bothwell, and Archibald ‘the Grim’ rebuilt much of it, his successors adding a Great Hall and chapel, finished by 1424. Later it passed through the Crichton, Hepburn, Angus and Home families. The Earl of Home placed it in state care in 1935, and Historic Environment Scotland now maintains it as a scheduled monument.