Berwick Castle: A Scottish Fortress on the Anglo-Scottish Frontier
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- English, Kingdom of Scotland
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page12 sections
History
Berwick Castle in the United Kingdom was a Scottish royal fortress commissioned by King David I in the 1120s. Probably begun as a wooden fort and strengthened in stone during the twelfth century, it occupied a rocky hill above the northern bank of the Tweed. As the southernmost fortress of the Scottish kingdom, it controlled approaches along the Anglo-Scottish frontier and became closely involved in the conflicts that repeatedly brought English and Scottish forces to Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Scottish and English control
Under the Treaty of Falaise, the castle passed to the English in 1175. Richard I of England later sold it back to Scotland around 1190 to help finance the Third Crusade, the campaign in which he took part as king of England. The fortress changed hands again during the Wars of Scottish Independence, the late-thirteenth- and early-fourteenth-century conflicts in which Scotland resisted English claims of overlordship and control.
Berwick Castle played a part in the Scottish succession crisis of 1292. In November that year, representatives of Edward I of England announced in the great hall his judgment in the dispute between John Balliol, Robert the Bruce, and the Count of Holland over the Scottish crown. Balliol, a Scottish nobleman and claimant to the throne, became king of Scots in 1292. The great hall was also associated with Edward’s reception of the allegiance of the Scottish nobility in 1296.
Edward I’s forces retook the castle in March 1296 during the First War of Scottish Independence. William Douglas, then serving as its keeper under Edward, joined William Wallace, a Scottish military leader who became a prominent figure in resistance to English rule. Scottish forces subsequently besieged the castle for three months. Edward relieved Berwick in 1298, appointed Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, as keeper, and placed 500 soldiers from Gascony in the garrison. The English retained the castle until Edward’s death in 1307.
Fourteenth-century warfare
Edward II strengthened Berwick Castle with a large sally port, a protected opening through which defenders could launch attacks, as well as major entrance gates and a bridge. The garrison later suffered when many troops deserted because they were poorly paid. Robert the Bruce recovered Berwick town in early April 1316. Although he usually ordered captured local castles to be burned, he strengthened Berwick Castle instead.
During an English attack, the Flemish privateer John Crabbe used a crane-mounted machine to project Greek fire, a combustible incendiary weapon used in medieval warfare. He also set fire to Edward II’s ships moored on the Tweed. The fighting continued to shape the castle’s ownership. After Edward III defeated the Scots at Halidon Hill on 19 July 1333, Berwick Castle was assigned to him the following day. Scottish forces recovered the town in October 1355, but the English retained the castle. Scottish raiders captured it in 1378, although they were soon expelled.
The office of keeper reflected the fortress’s military and administrative importance. Sir William Douglas the Hardy held it from 1294 to 1296, while Maurice de Berkeley served around 1314 and Edmond de Caillou, a Gascon governor, was killed at the Battle of Skaithmuir in 1316. Sir Robert Lauder of the Bass held the office to about 1330, followed by Robert de Lawedre of the Bass from 1330 to 1333. Later keepers included Patrick de Dunbar, 5th Earl of March, Sir Andrew Murray, Sir Richard Tempest, Robert Ogle, Robert de Lawedre of Edrington, David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, and Patrick Hepburn, 1st Lord Hailes.
In 1330, Robert de Lawedre of the Bass, described as keeper of the Marches and Berwick Castle, received £33 6s 8d from the Scottish Exchequer at the end of his employment, together with a similar payment. In 1435, Robert Ogle was captain, and the castle was valued at about £194 in peacetime, with a further £200 assigned to its wartime value. Robert Lauder of Edrington received £20 for repairs in 1464. In the last week of August 1482, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, captured the castle from Patrick Hepburn during his invasion of Scotland. Gloucester later became Richard III of England. Planned repairs in 1483 were entrusted to Alexander Lee, a royal chaplain, while the master carpenter George Porter was ordered to build houses in the town and chambers, a hall, and lodging in the castle.
Decline and reuse
During Elizabeth I’s reign, modern ramparts were built around Berwick, reportedly following the model of the fortifications at Lucca. The town’s principal defenses consequently shifted away from the medieval castle, which became obsolete and began to decline. In August 1590, John Selby reported that the castle’s only gun emplacement, a round tower, had collapsed during wet weather. The resulting opening faced Scotland, and repairs were estimated at £200 in 1597.
Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de Eresby and Governor of Berwick, considered the castle scarcely better defended than an ancient monastery orchard. Veteran soldiers continued to patrol it, but a surveyor of fortifications recommended demolition. In October 1600, Bertie had some structures rebuilt for his own use and pleasure.
The Union of the Crowns in 1603 placed the Scottish and English crowns under James VI of Scotland, who also became James I of England. With the two kingdoms sharing a monarch, Berwick’s military presence was reduced. George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar, began constructing a great house on the castle site with the involvement of James Murray of Kilbaberton, master of royal building work in Scotland. The mansion remained unfinished when Home died in 1611, although a large platform and a long gallery with a five-yard mantelpiece had been begun.
During the seventeenth century, large sections of the castle were dismantled for building material, including masonry used in Holy Trinity parish church during the Commonwealth. The castle was already a ruin by that century. In 1847, the Great Hall was demolished to make way for Berwick-upon-Tweed railway station on the North British Railway. Nineteenth-century railway construction removed nearly all of the remaining castle. The surviving medieval fabric is now a protected ruin and a Grade I listed monument, with that designation recorded from 1952.
Remains
Berwick Castle occupied a natural rocky height above the Tweed. Site information classifies it as a motte-and-bailey castle, although the elevated rocky ground is considered potentially unsuitable for a conventional motte. Built primarily of stone, the fortress is now largely demolished. Its surviving remains descend toward the river and preserve fragments of the medieval defensive arrangement, later artillery defenses, and routes through the ruined site.
Medieval defensive remains
White Wall
The principal surviving structure is the White Wall, a large crenellated thirteenth-century wall that runs down toward the river. Its steep route is known as Breakneck Path or Breakneck Steps. The wall and the associated descent preserve part of the castle’s defensive edge above the Tweed, while a riverside path passes beneath an opening in the ruins.
Surviving tower
A tower remains near the White Wall. Together with the wall, it forms the most substantial surviving part of the medieval castle. The ruins retain the relationship between the elevated defensive position and the route leading down toward the river.
Later defenses and lost buildings
Artillery towers
Two semicircular artillery towers were added to the defenses in the sixteenth century. One stood beside the river and the other at a corner of the wall. A separate round tower served as the castle’s only gun emplacement before collapsing during wet weather in 1590.
Great Hall and railway site
The Great Hall once stood where the railway station platform is now located. Its demolition in 1847 removed a major part of the castle, and the railway works left only sections of the western side. The hall’s former position records the extent to which nineteenth-century transport construction altered the medieval site.
Unfinished mansion
The early seventeenth-century mansion begun for George Home included a large platform and a long gallery with a flat roof. Its planned mantelpiece was about five yards long, but the building was never completed. Other parts of the castle fabric were dismantled and reused as masonry in Holy Trinity parish church and in additional seventeenth-century construction.
William Turner’s drawing of 1834 provides evidence for the appearance of the remains before the railway removed much of the castle. The surviving ruins now include the White Wall, part of a tower, the steep Breakneck route, and the passage beneath the ruin along the Tweed.
