Craignethan Castle

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Craignethan Castle from the west

Craignethan Castle is a ruined castle over the Nethan , a tributary of the Clyde in the Scottish administrative division of South Lanarkshire . The ruin is about three kilometers west of the village of Crossford and about seven kilometers northwest of Lanark . Craignethan Castle was built in the first half of the 16th century and is considered an excellent, early example of a cultivated artillery fort , even if its defenses never had to fully prove themselves.

history

The Draffane Barony , in which Craignethan Castle was located, belonged to the Black Douglases until they were outlawed in 1455. The lands were loaned to the Hamilton family and in 1530, James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran , bequeathed them to his illegitimate son James Hamilton of Finnart .

James Hamilton of Finnart had traveled across Europe and become an accomplished architect and military engineer. He was named Kings Master of Works and was responsible for building the defensive structures of Blackness Castle and the renaissance facades of Linlithgow Palace . At Craignethan Castle he wanted to show his talent in building houses and military facilities.

Despite the king's earlier favor, Hamilton was executed for treason in 1540 and forfeited his possessions to the crown. The Hamilton family regained Craignethan Castle two years later in the form of James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran . The Earl of Arran was appointed Duc de Châtellerault after Maria Stuart's marriage to the French Dauphin and served as regent as long as Maria Stuart was a minor. Later he turned against Maria Stuart's second marriage to Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley , and was forced to give up his two castles Craignethan Castle and Cadzow Castle .

The situation turned again when Mary Queen of Scots abdicated and the Earl of Arran helped her escape from Loch Leven Castle . He got his castles back. The son of the Earl of Arran, Lord Claud Hamilton , is said to have hosted Mary Queen of Scots at Craignethan Castle on the night of the Battle of Langside in 1568. The battle in which the Hamiltons fought against the forces of Regent Moray ended in defeat and Mary Queen of Scots had to flee to England . The Hamiltons had to give up the castles Cadzow and Craignethan again; Regent Moray came personally to Craignethan Castle on May 15, 1568 to receive the keys. Lord Claud Hamilton attempted to get the castle back by force in October and his brother John began starving Regent Moray's soldiers in November.

The argument between the Hamiltons and the opponents of Maria Stuart continued. In 1570, Regent Moray was shot at Linlithgow Castle by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh . After the English troops who helped with the Marian Civil War entered Glasgow in May 1570, the Hamiltons withdrew to Craignethan Castle and the Earl of Sussex was informed of the deficiencies in the defenses of Craignethan Castle:

"Draffin [is] a fortified house of the dukes, but which is in a hole so that it can be ruled from all sides, and it has no weapons"

That same month, Lord Sempill , now a man of the king, was captured and imprisoned in the castle.

A treaty was signed between the parties of the king and queen in 1573, but in 1579 the Hamiltons were declared outlawed and Lord Claud Hamilton was forced to flee to France . Troops were raised to take Craignethan Castle and Cadzow Castle, and both castles surrendered to government forces in May 1579. Claud Hamilton's older brother, the 3rd Earl of Arran , who was trapped in Craignethan Castle since 1575, her younger brother David and the Mother of the three were captured and taken to Linlithgow Palace. Six soldiers of the Hamilton family who had defended the forts of the Hamiltons were brought to trial in Stirling for the murder of Regent Moray.

With royal permission Craignethan Castle of was James Hamilton of Libertoun looped ; this included the destruction of the northwest tower, the massive west wall and the "inner barbican " that was thrown into the moat. This left the castle with almost no defenses.

Craignethan Castle reverted to the Hamiltons but was sold by Duchess Anne Hamilton in 1659. The new owner, Andrew Hay , a conventional gentleman , had a two-story house built in the south-west corner of the outer courtyard. In 1730 Craignethan Castle was sold to Archibald Douglas, 1st Duke of Douglas . The property fell to his presumed descendants, the Earls of Home , and the 12th Earl had the ruins shored up at the end of the 19th century. The 14th Earl signed the property to the state in 1949; today it is a Scheduled Monument and is administered by Historic Scotland .

architecture

Craignethan Castle was built in an imposing location over a bend in the Nethan river . Steep slopes protect the castle in the south, north and east, and a hill overlooks it in the west, making it much more vulnerable than it seems. The defenses of Craignethan are therefore concentrated in the west. The castle has a low donjon in the middle in a rectangular enclosed courtyard. To the west is a deep moat, outside a larger, outer courtyard. McIvor writes that "Craignethan Castle was the last private high-defensive castle to be built in Scotland" and compares it to contemporary renovations carried out at Blackness Castle or Tantallon Castle .

Donjon

The rectangular donjon covers an area of ​​21 × 16 meters and originally had two full floors and an attic. The attic and roof are now lost, but the walls stand all the way up to the decorative brackets that supported the parapet. Round watchtowers sit on each of the corners and machicolations protect the entrance. Inside, the donjon deviates from the usual division of a residential tower in several points. The entrance leads to a large staircase lobby on the first floor of the knight's hall , which was otherwise on the first floor. Below are underground vaulted cellars with four rooms, a prison and a well. You could get there either from the lobby or directly from the kitchen.

The interior of the donjon is divided by a wall from west to east. South of the wall is the knight's hall on the ground floor, 6 × 12 meters in size. One entered the knight's hall through the lobby in the west and it was lit through three large windows. An open fireplace was on the inner wall and a balcony for musicians is on the west side. The ceiling of the knight's hall was a stone vault and the hall extends over the full height of the donjon. North of the inner wall, on the first floor, was the kitchen and a private room. Above were two additional rooms that were accessible from below. There were four more rooms in the attic. The roof had a double gable, the eaves in the middle was supported by the inner wall.

Inner courtyard

The inner courtyard covers an area of ​​49 × 25 meters; its walls were reinforced by rectangular towers at each corner. It was accessible through a U-shaped entrance through a gate tower in the middle of the north wall. The western wall was designed to withstand artillery fire and was up to five meters thick. It was destroyed at the end of the 16th century, so that only its foundations are preserved today. It is believed that the western wall was as high as the relatively low keep and that the keep was thus safe from fire from the hill to the west.

Of the towers, the southwestern one was the largest, it is the only one that still stands today. It was called the “kitchen tower” and the chapel was probably housed in it. It has three floors, the lowest of which is an underground chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Loopholes on the upper floors face east. Each of the four towers had space for storerooms and rooms for the servants as well as additional sleeping chambers for guests.

The defenses of the original castle included a moat 3.5 meters deep and 9 meters wide at the foot of the western wall. This moat, which was originally crossed by a drawbridge , was filled in when the castle was razed and was only exposed again in the 1960s. A caponier was found at the bottom of the ditch , which is very unusual for a castle in Scotland. The caponier was reached through the southwest tower; it consisted of a covered tunnel with loopholes over the ditch so that the defenders could fire on any attacker who tried to cross or bridge the ditch. The only other remaining capons in Scotland to this day are at Blackness Castle, also designed by James Hamilton of Finnart , and (later) at Stirling Castle , designed by Theodore Dury .

Outer courtyard

The outer courtyard was less defensible than the inner one; the 2nd Earl of Arran had it added in the 1540s. The courtyard presumably had outbuildings on its edge and possibly gardens in the middle. There are two towers on the two western corners; in the northwest there is a pigeon house. The southwest tower was integrated into the house of Andrew Hay , a two-story building that he had built in 1665. There are loopholes along the western wall; there is also the main gate in the middle.

Walter Scott

In the fall of 1799, Walter Scott visited Bothwell Castle and was a guest of Archibald Lord Douglas. On a morning horseback ride to Craignethan Castle, he was so impressed by the sight that his hosts offered him the use of Andrew Hay's house for life. He didn't turn down the offer immediately, but circumstances later prevented him from setting up his summer residence in the area.

Scott's novella Old Mortality , published in 1816, largely took place in and around Tillietudlem Castle . Chapter XI describes the place: “All heads now bowed from the battlements of the turret, which offered a wide view over the river valley. The tower of Tillietudlem stood, or perhaps still stands, over the corner of a protruding bank which the confluence of a sizeable stream forms with the Clyde. ”In June 1829 he wrote to his friend James Skene , who made etchings to illustrate Scott's books : “I wasn't thinking of Craignethan [Castle] when I wrote about Tillietudlem [Castle] and I think it differs from my 'Chateau en Espagne' in several ways. It's not directly on the Clyde and, if I remember correctly, the view is limited and blocked by forest. But this cannot be an obstacle to accepting it as what the public taste has accepted as coming closest to the ideal of the place ”. In the revised Magnum edition of Old Mortality published in 1830, Scott added the following footnote: “Tillietudlem Castle is imaginary; but the ruins of Craignethan Castle on Nethan, about three miles from its confluence with the Clyde, have something of the character of description in the text. ”In September 1834 Scott's son-in-law, John Gibson Lockhart , took the painter William Turner to Craignethan Castle. Turner sketched the castle ruins from the north, viewed across the Nethan Gorge, and then made various drawings in and around the ruins.

Because of its connection to Scott's novella, Craignethan Castle was popular with visitors. In 1876 the Tillietudlem station was built on the Coalburn branch of the Caledonian Railway . A travelogue from 1880 of an excursion “to the Falls of the Clyde, Tillietudlem Castle. & c, ”indicates that the train station is“ only a short walk from the castle ”. A small group of houses was built on the road past the train station as Fence Terrace . This later became the settlement of Tillietudlem .

Individual references and comments

  1. ↑ Chris Tabraham: Scotland's Castles . ET Batsford & Historic Scotland, 1997. p. 102.
  2. ^ Gordon Mason: The Castles of Glasgow and the Clyde . Goblinshead, 2000, p. 94.
  3. ^ A b c d Gordon Mason: The Castles of Glasgow and the Clyde . Goblinshead, 2000. pp. 94-98.
  4. ↑ This story is questioned by Lindsay , who thinks that another story claims that Maria Stuart spent the night before the battle in Castlemilk , which is "topographically more believable".
  5. ^ Maurice Lindsay: The Castles of Scotland . Constable & Co., 1986. p. 164.
  6. ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland . Volume 2. 1900. p. 407.
  7. ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland . Volume 2. 1900. p. 516.
  8. ^ HMC Salisbury Hatfield . Volume 1. 1883. p. 374 in Calender State Papers Scotland . Volume 2. 1900. p. 630.
  9. ^ William Boyd: (Editor): Calendar State Papers Scotland . Volume 3. 1902, p. 182. No. 250.
  10. ^ William Boyd: (Editor): Calendar State Papers Scotland . Volume 3. 1902, p. 191. No. 263.
  11. ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland . Volume 5. 1907. p. 338.
  12. ^ Register of the Privy Council . Volume iii. 1887. p. 189: Order given by Council to James Hamilton to proceed, July 1580 . (especially NAS E22 / 4 f45v).
  13. ↑ Iain MacIvor: Craignethan Castle . Her Majesty's Stationary Office, Edinburgh 1978.
  14. ^ John Gibson Lockhart: The Life of Sir Walter Scott . T. and A. Constable. Retrieved May 23, 2017.
  15. ↑ Peter N. Davidson, Walter Sidney Scott, Jane Stevenson: Old Mortality . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1993. ISBN 0-19-282630-1 . S. xlii, 139, 465, 488. ( Chapter XI . Gutenberg Online. Retrieved May 23, 2017; June 1829 in The Journal of Sir Walter Scott by Sir Walter Scott . The Literature Network. Retrieved May 23, 2017.) .
  16. ↑ Mason states that Scott denied the connection, even though Lindsay reports that Scott was considering buying Craignethan Castle as an alternative to Abbotsford and having it renovated.
  17. ↑ Thomas Ardill: 'Craignethan Castle, Lanarkshire from the North', Joseph Mallord William Turner . Tate. October 2010. Retrieved May 23, 2017.
  18. ↑ Coalburn Branch (Caledonian Railway) . Railscot - A History of Britain's Railways. Retrieved May 24, 2017.
  19. ^ Lanarkshire, Sheet XXIV in Ordnance Survey Six-inch 1st edition, 1843-1882 . National Library of Scotland, 1864 . Retrieved May 24, 2017.
  20. ↑ Illustrated guide to and popular history of, Loch Lomond, the Trosachs, Loch Katrine, etc. Ward, Lock and Company, Ltd., London 1880. Retrieved May 24, 2017.
  21. ↑ Lanarkshire Sheet XXIV.SE in Ordnance Survey Maps Six-inch 2nd and later editions, 1892-1960 . National Library of Scotland, 1898 . Retrieved May 24, 2017.

Web links

Commons : Craignethan Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 55 ° 41 ′ 47.6 "  N , 3 ° 53 ′ 7.2"  W.