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ADVENTURE OF THE
MONTH — MAY, 2004 — PAGE 2
Once you have successfully found Hermitage Castle—an achievement deserving self-congratulation—the great question immediately comes to mind: why is this castle here? Can it be that life in the 13th century was so different that this forgotten valley with its minor trout stream, the Hermitage Water, was of some geo-political importance 800 years ago? Did some important road pass by here? Why was this isolated spot key in the constant strife between bickering nobles on both sides of the border? Why did Mary Queen of Scots risk her reputation and her life to visit Hermitage Castle? How can one small castle near nowhere in particular have gained such a history of murder, treason, and adultery, play an important role in the political history of Scotland, and have associations with legendary giants and ghostly spirits? All in good time. The earliest Hermitage Castle—a wooden affair built in 1242—was built just a couple of hundred yards downstream from the isolated abode of a holy hermit among the fells of Liddesdale. Today you can visit the ruins of a 14th century chapel that may have been built on the monk’s original hermitage upstream from the restored castle.
Two things spelled the end of importance for the castles in the "Debatable Lands" of the Scottish Borders: the development of powerful cannons capable of breaking down the stoutest stone walls, and the ascension of Scotland’s King James VI, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, to the Throne of England, in 1603. Hermitage Castle was no exception—its history as a residence of nobility ended at the beginning of the 17th century. Hermitage Castle gradually fell into disuse, and began to collapse from lack of maintenance, when it—like Smailholm Tower had already done—captured the romantic imagination of Sir Walter Scott and other artists and writers of the early 19th century. When J. M. W. Turner, the great English landscape painter, visited Sir Walter Scott at his home near Melrose in 1832, he painted several Border abbeys and castles including Hermitage Castle. Many of these watercolors were published in a book that popularized the region’s romantic past and likely saved many of the subject structures from complete ruin.
LOCATION: From Hawick in the Scottish Borders,
take the B6399 south toward Newcastleton. After 15 miles of scenery reminiscent of the Big
Sky country in Montana or Mackenzie Country on the South Island of New Zealand—lots
of sheep, rugged hills and dales, few cars, and wild rivers—watch for the turn for
Hermitage Castle. The castle is located 1 mile west of the B6399 on a tertiary (sometimes
one lane) road. When returning, follow the tertiary road west through and across the
mountains and over the border to the A7. Turn north on the A7 back to Hawick and about 20
miles north to the A72, then east back into Melrose and Home
At
First’s cottages near town. OPEN: ADMISSION: (subject to change) VISIT SMAILHOLM TOWER — GO TO PAGE 1 HOW TO TRAVEL TO THE SCOTTISH BORDERS VISIT OUR
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If you
enjoy the challenge of finding little known and under visited historic gems amid beautiful
surroundings, depart today for Hermitage Castle. Set among bald top mountains in the
remote Liddesdale valley southern just north of the English border, Hermitage Castle
provides a wonderful reason to get lost in one of Britain’s last frontiers. If you go
to find answers, expect disappointment, for you will surely return from the Hermitage
Castle with more questions than you took with you.
The stone castle that followed was built and
expanded during the late 14th and 15th centuries. For a while Hermitage Castle belonged to
the powerful Scottish noble family of Douglas and Angus, although its allegiance changed
several times from Scottish kings to English kings and back again. The Scots tired of the
Douglas clan’s loyalty of convenience, and confiscated Hermitage Castle in the late
15th century, giving it to the Earls of Bothwell. The Bothwell family proved no more
loyal, and again the castle sometimes was under English control and sometimes under
Scottish control. In the second half of the 16th century, the castle experienced its most
important visit, when the 4th Earl of Bothwell, James Hepburn, lying wounded from a
skirmish, received Mary Queen of Scots, his secret lover, future wife,
and—likely—co-conspirator in the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley.
Mary, having heard of Bothwell’s injuries, rode all day on horseback across the
hills, streams and bogs of the rugged Borders country from Jedburgh to visit Hepburn at
Hermitage Castle, and returned to Jedburgh that same day, exhausted and ill. Mary
recovered over a period of weeks in a house in Jedburgh you may also visit when you come
to the Scottish Borders.
The noble Buccleuch family made
significant repairs to Hermitage Castle before ownership of the fortress was transferred
to Scotland in 1930. Today, the castle appears much as it did when first built in the 14th
century: as a cobbled courtyard surrounded by high stone walls with the residence on the
first floor. The site is owned and maintained by Historic Scotland, a national
preservation trust. Located on uneven, grassy land a few hundred yards walk from the car
park, the castle is not easily reached by visitors of limited mobility. However, it may be
viewed from the roadway across the small river, the Hermitage Water that parallels the
road.
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