Showing posts with label Hepburn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hepburn. Show all posts

Tuesday, 24 November 2020

Skulferatu #7 - Hailes Castle, Traprain, Haddington

 

In a valley by the River Tyne (not to be confused with the River Tyne that flows through Newcastle) sits the rather pretty ruin of Hailes Castle.  On a cold winters day with a north wind cutting through my clothes like a knife of ice I went for a little walk around the castle and along the river.  From the road the castle looks rather unimposing, but as you walk through the ruins and down to the river the building becomes much more impressive.  The best views being from by or across the river.

 

The castle dates from the early 1200s and was built by the de Gourlay family.  The de Gourlay’s were a Northumbrian family who supported the Balliols during the Wars of Independence.  The Balliols lost the battle for the Scottish Crown and the de Gourlay’s land was confiscated and handed to Sir Adam de Hepburn.  He then extended the castle buildings.


Hailes Castle - View from Brae Heads Loan


Hailes Castle - View from banks of River Tyne

In 1546 the Lutheran preacher, George Wishart, was imprisoned in the castle after being arrested while preaching in Ormiston.  He was then handed over to Cardinal Beaton, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, and was taken to St Andrews Castle.  There, after being tried for heresy, he was burned at the stake.

 

Mary Queen of Scots stayed at the castle along with James Hepburn, the Fourth Earl of Bothwell.  They stopped here on their way from Dunbar to their wedding at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh on 15 May 1567.  Their marriage was deeply unpopular, as Hepburn had been implicated in the murder a few months earlier of Mary’s husband Lord Darnley.  Shortly after Mary and Hepburn’s marriage, Mary was forced to abdicate the throne to her infant son.  Hepburn then fled the country and lived in exile in Denmark.  There he died in 1578, while imprisoned.  In 1858 his body was exhumed from the vault it had been buried in and was found to have become mummified.  In the 1970s it was supposedly an exhibit in the Edinburgh Wax Museum on the Royal Mile.

 

In 1650 Cromwell’s troops occupied the castle and severely damaged it.  By the mid-1900s Hailes Castle was being used as a granary and in 1926 it was taken into state care.


The Tower House at Hailes Castle

The Dovecot in the Tower House

The Skulferatu that accompanied me on this trip was placed in the dovecot in the tower house.


Skulferatu #7

Skulferatu #7 in Dovecot Hollow

Skulferatu #7 in Dovecot Hollow


The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are: Latitude 55.973236 Longitude -2.683593.


Google Map showing location of Skulferatu