Bass Rock Castle

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The remains of the castle and the lighthouse

Bass Rock Castle is a ruined castle on Bass Rock , an island in the outer part of the Firth of Forth in the East Lothian administrative division of Scotland .

description

View of the castle on Bass Rock (around 1690)

Not far from the island's jetty, a curtain wall crosses the slope that follows the terrain. It has various protrusions and round bastions , where a ledge provides a suitable base. The parapet of the curtain wall is provided with battlements and has the usual battlement. Another curtain runs at right angles down to the sea near the jetty and ends in a round tower, the arched base of which has poorly sloped and obviously rather amateurishly constructed loopholes . The entrance to the castle ruins is in this external wall , where it meets the other curtain wall.

The main defenses can be entered a little further on the same line through a protruding two-story building. This building has some open fireplaces with very simple and late stone carvings. The buildings are made of the locally available basalt and the masonry is made of rough rubble. How often is there no clear indication of the dating of the individual parts, which most likely originated at different times.

A little below the entrance there is a tower that formed a simple bastion and to which a bedroom with gables was added in the 17th century. Despite its small size, it must have been sufficiently comfortable. The hewn open fireplace was decorated with blue Dutch tiles. Today the building is in serious disrepair.

history

Royal visits

In 1497 King James IV visited Bass Rock and stayed at the castle with a later Robert Lauder of the Bass . The ferryman who translated the king from Dunbar received 14 shillings. George Lauder of the Bass hosted King James VI. when he visited Bass Rock in 1581; the king was so delighted with the rock that he wanted to buy it, but George Lauder did not like it. The king seems to have accepted this.

jail

In 1671, the castle became a notorious prison that held prisoners for many decades for religious and political reasons, especially covenanters like Alexander Peden . Alexander Blackadder , one of the Convenanters' martyrs, died on Bass Rock in 1686 and is buried in North Berwick .

destruction

Charles Maitland, 3rd Earl of Lauderdale , held Bass Rock for King James VII shortly after the Scottish Parliament declared his abdication. The government had the fortress destroyed in 1701.

swell

  • Patrick Fraser Tytler: The History of Scotland . Volume III. Edinburgh 1866. pp. 187-190.
  • John J. Reid: The Bass - Early notices in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland . 1885.
  • Joseph Bain (Editor): Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland 1357-1509 . Volume IV. No. 942: February 3, 1424. Edinburgh 1888.
  • Louis Auguste Barbé: The Bass Rock and its Story . William Hodge & Co., Glasgow & Edinburgh 1904.
  • RP Phillimore: North Berwick, Gullane, Aberlady and East Linton District . North Berwick 1913. p. 40.
  • Ian C. Hannah: The Berwick and Lothian Coasts . London & Leipzig 1913.
  • The Bass Rock in History in Transactions of the East Lothian Antiquarian & Field Naturalists' Society . Issue 5. 1948. p. 55.
  • GMS Lauder-Frost: The Lauders of the Bass in East Lothian Life . No. 22nd Fall 1996. ISSN 1361-7818.

Web links

Commons : Bass Rock Castle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 56 ° 4 ′ 34.2 "  N , 2 ° 38 ′ 25.8"  W.