Crichton Castle: A Medieval Scottish Family Residence and Later Renaissance Castle
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Scotland
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page17 sections
History
Crichton Castle is a late-fourteenth-century medieval Scottish family residence in Crichton, United Kingdom. John de Crichton probably built its original tower house after Robert III of Scotland granted him the barony of Crichton. The castle later became associated with powerful families, political conflict, royal visits, and an Italian-inspired rebuilding campaign during the sixteenth century.
The Crichton family and destruction in 1445
John de Crichton’s son and heir, William Crichton, rose to become Lord Chancellor of Scotland, the crown’s principal legal and administrative officer. Around 1443 he was made Lord Crichton. His involvement in the 1440 Black Dinner, at which William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas, and his brother were murdered, provoked retaliation from Douglas supporters.
In 1445, Sir John Forrester of Corstorphine, a leading member of Clan Forrester and an adherent of the Douglas family, stormed Crichton Castle and partly destroyed it. William Crichton later rebuilt and enlarged the residence. In 1449 he also founded the nearby Crichton Collegiate Church, a church served by a college of clergy for regular religious services.
Forfeiture and the Bothwell inheritance
The third Lord Crichton supported Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany. When Albany was condemned for treason in 1483, Crichton forfeited his lands and titles. Crichton Castle and Bothwell Castle were briefly granted to Sir John Ramsey, who forfeited them himself in 1488.
That year, James IV granted the former Crichton possessions to Patrick Hepburn, Lord Hailes, who later became the first Earl of Bothwell. Crichton Castle thereafter belonged to the Earls of Bothwell. Adam Hepburn, the second Earl, died at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The castle then passed to his widow, Agnes Stewart, and later to their son, Patrick Hepburn, 3rd Earl of Bothwell.
Conflict during the Scottish Reformation
James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, supported Mary of Guise during the Scottish Reformation, the sixteenth-century movement that established Protestantism as the dominant form of Christianity in Scotland. He also seized English money intended for the Protestant Lords of the Congregation, nobles who opposed Mary of Guise’s Catholic regency.
These actions brought the castle into the conflict. On 3 November 1559, the Earl of Arran and the Master of Maxwell besieged and captured Crichton Castle. It was ransacked, and Bothwell’s legal charters and records were removed.
On 4 January 1562, the castle hosted the marriage and celebrations of Jean Hepburn, Patrick Hepburn’s daughter, and John Stewart, Prior of Coldingham and an illegitimate son of James V. Mary, Queen of Scots, attended the celebrations and stayed at Crichton for several nights. Evidence in the later divorce proceedings between the Earl of Bothwell and Jean Gordon also connected the castle’s kitchen tower with Bothwell’s entertainment of Bessy Crawford.
James Hepburn was implicated in the 1567 murder of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and became Mary, Queen of Scots’ third husband. In December 1567, his titles and estates, including Crichton Castle, were forfeited.
The Stewart rebuilding campaign
In 1568, Crichton Castle and other former Bothwell estates were granted to Francis Stewart, an illegitimate grandson of James V. Francis became Earl of Bothwell in 1577. After travelling in Europe, he designed the Italianate north range during the 1580s, bringing a new architectural character to the castle.
James VI visited Crichton on 17 March 1587 while planning an embassy to Denmark with Peter Young. He returned on 19 June 1598, his birthday, after a day of hawking. Francis Stewart later lost royal favour, was accused of witchcraft, and forfeited his estates in 1592. He eventually fled to Naples, where he died. His son Francis was later reinstated, but debts inherited from his father led him to sell Crichton Castle to the Hepburns of Humbie.
Decline and preservation
By the end of the sixteenth century, Crichton Castle was no longer a residence and subsequently fell into neglect. By 1659 it was being used as a stone quarry. Major Henry Callander of Preston Hall transferred the castle into state care in 1956. It remains a ruined castle managed by Historic Environment Scotland and has been a scheduled monument since 1921, a legal designation protecting sites of national archaeological or historical importance.
The castle has also retained a place in later cultural history. J. M. W. Turner painted it, and it appears in Sir Walter Scott’s Marmion. Crichton was later used as a filming location for Rob Roy (1995) and The Wicker Tree (2011).
Remains
Courtyard complex and early towers
East tower
Crichton Castle consists of four adjoining buildings arranged around an inner courtyard on elevated ground overlooking the River Tyne near its headwaters. The earliest part is the late-fourteenth-century tower on the east side. Its surviving features include a vaulted basement with an intermediate timber floor, a vaulted hall above, cellars, a prison, and a kitchen. The south-west corner of the tower has collapsed.
South tower and entrance
A defensive enclosure wall or courtyard, known as a barmkin, formerly stood west of the original tower. In the early fifteenth century, William Crichton added a second tower on the south side. Together, the two towers created a strong L-shaped plan, with the entrance gate positioned between them.
The south tower has a central entrance, vaulted cellars on either side, and halls on the first and second floors. Its great hall and kitchens belong to the fifteenth-century expansion. Around 1580, the hall was divided into separate compartments. The interior also contains Scotland’s earliest documented “scale-and-platt” staircase, a stair with landings rather than a conventional spiral form, as well as a drawing room north of the original tower.
Later medieval and Renaissance ranges
West block
A west block was added in the later fifteenth century. Its south-west tower rises six storeys and contained bedrooms with garderobes, medieval or early-modern latrines set within projecting or wall-side chambers. Two service rooms stood above the bedrooms, and a stair in the south block provided access to them.
North range
The north range closed the courtyard and was heavily rebuilt during the sixteenth century. Francis Stewart’s Italianate courtyard facade, meaning a design influenced by Italian architecture, is faced with diamond-patterned rustication. This masonry uses blocks shaped into projecting diamond forms, creating a strong geometric surface pattern influenced by the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, built around 1582. The facade also includes an arcade.
The courtyard facade bears the initials of Francis Stewart and Margaret Douglas. An anchor represents Francis Stewart’s office as Lord High Admiral of Scotland, the senior position responsible for the kingdom’s naval affairs, which he held from 1581.
Earthworks and buildings south of the castle
Defensive earthworks and quarry
Large earthworks survive in front of the castle. They formerly supplied additional protection to the complex. A sandstone quarry to the south-east provided good-quality stone used in the castle’s construction.
Stable block
A large stable block stands south of the castle. The two-storey building has lodgings above and a horseshoe-shaped entrance designed to let a mounted rider pass through without dismounting. One description also identifies a horseshoe-shaped window at the entrance.
Uncertain southern building
Another building stands south of the castle, but its original function remains uncertain. It has been interpreted as a barn, slaughterhouse, or chapel.
