Caerlaverock Castle
Interesting facts
- The name is Brittonic, from caer, a fort; its later spelling was shaped by the Scots word laverock, meaning skylark.
- According to legend, the bard Myrddin went mad after his king fell in a battle of 573 fought over Caer-Laverock, a story that helped inspire Merlin.
- Only the gatehouse stands on natural rock; the rest of the castle rests on a clay platform made for it, and the moat probably supplied the building stone.
- The army that besieged the castle in 1300 included the future Edward II and knights from Brittany and Lorraine.
- During the Wars of Independence Sir Eustace Maxwell dismantled his own castle so the English could not use it, and Robert the Bruce rewarded him.
- The 1630s Nithsdale Lodging façade is crowned by carved pediments over its windows, filled with coats of arms and symbolic sculpture.
- According to Sir Henry Vane, when the castle surrendered in 1640 the earl and countess were allowed to leave, but 40 defenders named Maxwell were killed.
- J. M. W. Turner painted the castle around 1832.
- The neighbouring nature reserve covers about 55 square kilometres of saltmarsh and mudflats, an internationally important wintering ground for barnacle geese.
- The castle served as a filming location for the 2011 romantic comedy The Decoy Bride.
Why it is worth it
Caerlaverock Castle is a castle drawn with a set square: a triangle of red sandstone walls rising from a water-filled moat on the flat coastal marshes of south-west Scotland. It is the only triangular castle in Britain and one of very few in Europe, and despite sieges, deliberate demolitions and rebuildings over four centuries it still keeps the plan laid out in the late 13th century, with a massive twin-towered gatehouse at the northern point and round towers at the two southern corners.
The Maxwell family held these lands from about 1220, when Alexander II granted them to Sir John Maxwell. His first castle, square and among the earliest stone castles in Scotland, was abandoned for a rock outcrop some 200 metres to the north, where his brother Sir Aymer began the present building; it was finished in the 1270s. In July 1300 Edward I of England arrived with a large army that included eighty-seven English barons. The garrison held out for a time before surrendering, and it turned out that only about sixty men had resisted the whole force. The English heralds recorded the campaign in an Old French verse roll of arms, The Siege of Caerlaverock, which names the knights present and describes their coats of arms.
The castle changed hands repeatedly during the Wars of Independence and was partly dismantled more than once, then largely rebuilt by Sir Robert Maxwell between 1373 and 1410. The gatehouse, whose drum towers still stand about 15 metres high to their 15th-century machicolations, was probably reconstructed in the mid-15th century, and a west range was added around 1500. After an English siege in 1570 the gatehouse was blown up with gunpowder and later repaired.
The most surprising part lies inside the walls. In the 1630s Robert Maxwell, newly created Earl of Nithsdale, built the Nithsdale Lodging, a residential range regarded as one of the most ambitious early classical houses in Scotland. Its life was short: in 1640 a Covenanter army besieged the Catholic earl for thirteen weeks, then pulled down the south wall and tower, and the castle was never lived in again. It is now in the care of Historic Environment Scotland and stands at the edge of the Caerlaverock National Nature Reserve.
Getting there
The castle is about 12 km south of Dumfries, the nearest town, which has a railway station. The nearest major airport is Edinburgh Airport (EDI), about 109 km away in a straight line.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Caerlaverock Castle is a moated triangular castle first built in the 13th century. It is located on the southern coast of Scotland, eleven kilometres south of Dumfries, on the edge of the Caerlaverock National Nature Reserve. Caerlaverock was a stronghold of the Maxwell family from the 13th century until the 17th century, when the castle was abandoned. It was besieged by the English during the Wars of Scottish Independence, and underwent several partial demolitions and reconstructions over the 14th and 15th centuries. In the 17th century, the Maxwells were created Earls of Nithsdale, and built a new lodging within the walls, described as among "the most ambitious early classical domestic architecture in Scotland". In 1640 the castle was besieged for the last time by the Protestant Covenanters army, and was subsequently abandoned. Although demolished and rebuilt several times, the castle retains the distinctive triangular plan first laid out in the 13th century. Caerlaverock Castle was built to control trade in early times.
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