Castles in Scotland
Castles, in the sense of a fortified residence of a lord or noble, arrived in Scotland as a consequence of the centralising of royal authority in the twelfth century.
[2] Prior to the 1120s there is very little evidence of castles having existed in Scotland, which had remained less politically centralised than in England with the north still ruled by the kings of Norway.
[12] When Edward I invaded Scotland he brought with him the siege capabilities that had evolved south of the border, resulting in the rapid fall of major castles.
[24] The defences of tower houses were primarily aimed to provide protection against smaller raiding parties and were not intended to put up significant opposition to an organised military assault.
They were often also surrounded by a barmkyn or bawn, a walled courtyard designed to hold valuable animals securely, but not necessarily intended for serious defence.
They used exceptional one-off revenues, such as the forfeiture of key lands, to establish their power across their kingdom in various ways including constructing grander castles by extending and modifying existing fortifications.
Linlithgow was first constructed under James I, under the direction of master of work John de Waltoun and was referred to as a palace, apparently the first use of this term in the country, from 1429.
[36] This was followed by re-buildings at Holyrood, Falkland, Stirling and Edinburgh,[37] described by Roger Maison as "some of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in Britain".
[40] Similar themes can be seen in the private houses of aristocrats, as in Mar's Wark, Stirling (c. 1570) and Crichton Castle, built for the Earl of Bothwell in 1580s.
[41]In the period of French intervention in the 1540s and 1550s, at the end of the Rough Wooing, Scotland was given a defended border of a series of earthwork forts and additions to existing castles.
It kept many of the features of the high walled Medieval castles that had been largely made obsolete by gunpowder weapons and may have been influenced by the French masons brought to Scotland to work on royal palaces.
[46] In 1601, James Wood broke into his father's castle at Bonnyton in Angus, intent on stealing legal documents from a chest in the chamber of dais.
[47] Larger castles had further bed chambers, sometimes in a vertical jamb or wing, and a gallery at attic level for family leisure.
He adopted a distinctive style that applied elements of Scottish fortification and Flemish influences to a Renaissance plan like that used at Château d'Ancy-le-Franc.
[52][53] In the Bishop's Wars castles that held out for the king against the Covenanters, including Caerlaverock and Threave in 1640, were slighted, with their roofs removed and walls breached to make them uninhabitable.
As a result, it was pounded into submission by the New Model Army's siege train, losing its end towers and ceasing to be a residence from that point.
[57] Tours became increasingly popular during the nineteenth century, usually starting at Edinburgh and then spending up to two weeks further north, taking advantage of the expanding rail and steamer network.
[59] Scottish castle guidebooks became well known for providing long historical accounts of their sites, often drawing on the plots of Romantic novels for the details.
[60][61] Sir Walter Scott's novels set in Scotland popularised several northern castles, including Tantallon, which was featured in the poem Marmion (1808).
[63] Inveraray Castle, constructed from 1746 with design input from William Adam, displays the incorporation of turrets and is among the first houses in the revived style.
Common features borrowed from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century houses included battlemented gateways, crow-stepped gables, pointed turrets and machicolations.
The style was popular across Scotland and was applied to many relatively modest dwellings by architects such as William Burn (1789–1870), David Bryce (1803–76),[65] Edward Blore (1787–1879), Edward Calvert (c. 1847–1914) and Robert Stodart Lorimer (1864–1929) and in urban contexts, including the building of Cockburn Street in Edinburgh (from the 1850s) as well as the National Wallace Monument at Stirling (1859–69).
[68] The style spread south and the architect Edward Blore added a Scots Baronial touch to his work at Windsor.
It continued to influence the construction of some estate houses, including Skibo Castle, which was rebuilt for industrialist Andrew Carnegie (1899–1903) by Ross and Macbeth.
During the twentieth century a number of older castles were transferred into the care of the state, and these are now the responsibility of Historic Scotland, which was created as an agency in 1991.
The National Trust for Scotland (founded 1931) cares for several post-Medieval castles and estate houses, including Culzean and Craigievar that were still in occupation until the twentieth century.
