Hawthornden Castle

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Hawthornden Castle, painting by Alexander Nasmyth around 1820

Hawthornden Castle is a castle near the Scottish village of Rosewell in the Council Area Midlothian . It is located on a hill above the east bank of the North Esk . In 1971 the building was included in the highest category of the Scottish monument lists . The facility is also classified as a Scheduled Monument .

The castle is privately owned and is home to the Miss Alice Warrender Foundation for Hawthornden Prize and the home of the Hawthornden International Writers' Fellowship .

history

The area around Hawthornden Castle, located on a densely wooded gorge of the North Esk not far from Edinburgh , has been considered mystical and scenic for centuries. The place was settled thousands of years ago. Below the structure is a cave system that was carved into the rock during the Bronze Age . In the artificial grottoes there are Pictish symbol stones from the 5th to 9th centuries AD. In the Middle Ages, the caves are said to have served as a base and hiding place for Robert the Bruce and Scottish troops. As a barony , Hawthornden had been owned by the Lords of Abernethy since the 13th century . In the 14th century, the Earls of Douglas received the fief . The oldest parts of the castle date back to the 15th century and include the ruins of a three-storey defense tower and the southern facade of the triangular inner courtyard. The castle was sacked by troops of the English lord protector Edward Seymour during the Rough Wooing War in 1544 and 1547 .

Around 1600 the King of Scotland, James VI. , the fief as laird to the gentleman usher Sir John Drummond. His son, the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden , had the current castle built onto the ruins of the old fortified tower in 1638. After Ben Jonson , next to William Shakespeare the most important English playwright of the Renaissance , walked from London to Hawthornden in 1619 and visited William Drummond, the castle is considered a place of inspiration and meeting place for poets and thinkers. Between the years 1626 and 1636, Drummond left large parts of his considerable private library to the University of Edinburgh . The collection included literary works such as early prints by William Shakespeare, as well as historical, theological, philosophical, legal, medical, scientific and geographical literature. For the library of the University of Edinburgh, the 800 or so fonts from the Drummond Foundation are of inestimable value.

Over the centuries, numerous writers, painters, artists and well-known personalities stayed at Hawthornden Castle, including William II of Orange , Samuel Johnson , James Boswell , Robert Burns , Lord Byron , Dorothy and William Wordsworth , Walter Scott , William Turner . For a visit on September 14, 1842 by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , the corridors under the castle were completely covered with red velvet so that the high-ranking guests could visit the caves and the Pictish stones as befits their status. The then 23-year-old queen is said to have been impressed by the mystical place. The Scottish painter Sir William Allan from the Royal Academy of Arts immortalized her visit in the painting The visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Hawthornden . The picture is now in the Scottish National Gallery and shows the royal guests in front of the castle overlooking the wooded canyon.

Almost all well-known British writers made a pilgrimage to Hawthornden Castle at some point in their lives to be inspired by the place. This continues to apply, although in the past, as now, only selected personalities are granted access to the “source of English literature”. Even Charles Dickens was refused a visit at the height of his fame in 1859, according to a newspaper report of the time (abridged translation):

“Charles Dickens recently visited the beautiful and timeless landscape of Hawthornden while in Edinburgh. Mr. Dickens wanted to see the castle. When he and his tour group came to the gate, the guard acting as Cerberus refused to let them in. Mr. Dickens was so outraged at the insolence of the wrinkled old Scotch woman who refused entry to his and his own highly esteemed company that he appealed to his fame and said: My good wife, my name is Dickens and I cannot come here every day . The Cerberus replies: I don't know your name or your fame, but you are welcome to visit us in accordance with our rules after you have registered. "

In 1918/19 Alice Warrender (* 1857; † 1947) established the Hawthornden Prize , the oldest literary prize in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . It is usually awarded annually to writers for a work of literature that has been published in the last twelve months and is characterized by a special imagination . Little is known about Alice Warrender. She was born in Hawthornden and was the second daughter of Helen Purves-Hume-Campbell and Sir George Warrender, 6th Baronet of Lochend and Bruntsfield. The single and childless writer wanted to use the award to promote young and imaginative writers. In 1935 she transferred her fortune to a foundation, the Miss Alice Warrender Foundation for Hawthornden Prize , which, in addition to the literature prize, grants individuals loans, grants and pensions, among other things. The foundation is based at Hawthornden Castle.

The Drummond family owned the castle until 1970. The last Lord Drummond of Hawthornden left the property to his butler , who sold the castle to the Edinburgh art and antiques dealer Douglas Adamson. The Adamson family lived at Hawthornden Castle until 1985 and opened parts of the castle to the general public. Subsequently, the patroness Drue Heinz, a member of the Heinz dynasty , acquired the property. In 1990 she had the castle extensively restored and a large library added to the tower ruins. Since then, the Heinz family has used Hawthornden Castle as their residence for four months a year. In the rest of the time, the castle serves the Hawthornden International Writers' Fellowship as a literary artist house and is available to creative writers as a place of inspiration and retreat under certain conditions.

Hawthornden Community

Hawthornden Castle (2013)

In 1982, the Hawthornden International Writers' Fellowship was established at Hawthornden Castle . The community offers selected authors from all over the world a free stay for four to six weeks at Hawthornden Castle. These visitors are called Hawthornden Fellows . They do not receive any financial support, not even grants for the publication of their works or for travel expenses. As soon as the companions arrive in Hawthornden, however, they are fully guests of the house, including shared meals, tea time, sherry time, etc.

Authors who have already published at least one literary work can apply. The documents must be submitted by November 15th for the following year. In addition to a questionnaire to be filled in, this includes a curriculum vitae and a published or unpublished work by the author. At the same time only four to five people are accepted, a total of around 20 companions per year.

The selection of guests is made by a committee that includes writers such as Alasdair Gray and Ian Rankin . The guiding ideology, a retreat (serves as a conceptual Retreat ) for protection against the distractions and obligations of daily life has to offer, where authors can concentrate fully on their writing. Accordingly, there is no internet on Hawthornden Castle. Mobile telephones are undesirable; there is only a network connection in a small parking lot in front of the castle entrance. Visitors are not allowed. Registrations or applications can only be made by telephone or fax. An email address or homepage does not exist (as of 2020).

Well-known Hawthornden Fellows

Well-known Hawthornden Fellows in recent years include:

Trivia

Hawthornden is often considered a tongue twister to those learning English as a foreign language ; some cannot pronounce the word at all. The Hawthornden apple was particularly famous in this context . This cultivated apple was grown on Hawthornden in the middle of the 18th century. Because of its rich portability and beauty, the chance seedling found its way to German-speaking countries around 1790. Since hardly anyone could pronounce Hawthornden , the name was colloquially translated literally into hawthorn apple. However, the apple of Hawthornden is not a combination of breeding with the Hagedorn (Engl. Hawthorn ), but received its name by its place of origin: Hawthornden.

See also

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland . Retrieved December 17, 2018
  2. ↑ Scheduled Monument - Entry . In: Historic Scotland . Retrieved December 17, 2018
  3. ↑ Craig Alan Lerner: The Grants Register 1989–1991. Springer, 1988, p. 297.
  4. ^ The Edinburgh Magazine: Literary miscellany. Hawthornden. Printed for J. Sibbald. 1792, pp. 179-181.
  5. ^ History of the foundation of the library . in: University of Edinburgh website, accessed December 18, 2018
  6. ^ Martin Coventry: The Castles of Scotland. 3rd edition . Goblinshead, 2001.
  7. ↑ Garden and Designed Landscape - entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  8. ↑ Sir William Allan, The visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Hawthornden, September 14, 1842 in: National Galleries of Scotland, accessed December 17, 2018
  9. ^ Fellowship of a castle in: The Hindu Business Line, accessed December 17, 2018
  10. ^ Hawthornden Castle in: The Editors of The Gazetteer for Scotland, accessed December 17, 2018
  11. ↑ Pauls Toutonghi: Inside the Ultimate Writers' Retreat. November 5, 2015. In: Literary Hub, accessed December 17, 2018
  12. ↑ Graham Swift's Mothering Sunday wins fiction's most secretive prize in: theguardian.com, accessed December 17, 2018
  13. ^ Mary Pache: The Tree Warrender Sisters. Ruislip. Northwood & Eastcote Journal, 2010, p. 34. In: Northwood & Eastcote Local History Society, accessed December 17, 2018
  14. ^ William Burton McCormick: The Hawthornden Castle Fellowship Experience. April 20, 2016 In: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, accessed December 17, 2018
  15. ^ Hawthornden Castle in: The Castles of Scotland, accessed December 17, 2018
  16. ↑ Craig Alan Lerner: The Grants Register 1989–1991. Springer, 1988, p. 297.
  17. ^ Hawthornden Castle in: The Editors of The Gazetteer for Scotland, accessed December 17, 2018
  18. ↑ Pauls Toutonghi: Inside the Ultimate Writers' Retreat. November 5, 2015. In: Literary Hub, accessed December 17, 2018
  19. ^ Hawthornden Castle, International Retreat for Writers. in: Trans Artists Residence Guide, accessed December 17, 2018
  20. ↑ see the respective link and their publications on Hawthornden Castle on the Internet
  21. ^ Fellowship of a castle in: The Hindu Business Line, accessed December 17, 2018
  22. ^ Wilhelm Lauche: German pomology. Hawthornden Apple. Paray, Berlin, 1882. in: Wageningen University & Research on Social Media, accessed on December 18, 2018
  23. ↑ Hagedornapfel (apple) in: Stiftung Kompetenzzentrum Obstbau-Bodensee, accessed on August 27, 2018
  24. ↑ Fr. Lucas: Apple from Hawthornden. in: Pomologische Monatshefte, Volume 51, E. Ulmer, 1905, p. 48 f.

Coordinates: 55 ° 51 ′ 39.2 "  N , 3 ° 8 ′ 31"  W.