Qualla: Caerlaverock Castle

Caerlaverock Castle: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Ledingham, CC BY-SA 2.0. In July 1300, the English heralds who marched north with Edward I composed a poem as they went. The Roll of Caerlaverock named eighty-seven barons, knights from Brittany and Lorraine, the future Edward II among them, and described each man's coat of arms in Old French verse. Then they had to do something with all this chivalry. Their target was a small triangular castle on the Solway marshes held by sixty Maxwell men. The siege took the king's army considerable time. The poem, in the end, outlasted everyone in it.

Read more: Caerlaverock Castle on Qualla

Image: Simon Ledingham | CC BY-SA 2.0

Caerlaverock Castle: A Castle Shaped Like Nothing Else

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland, CC BY-SA 2.0. Caerlaverock is the only triangular castle in Britain and one of a small number anywhere in Europe. Its gatehouse, with twin drum towers, sits at the apex pointing north; the two southern corners hold smaller drum towers. A moat encloses the whole, fed by the marshy floodplain of...

Read more: Caerlaverock Castle on Qualla

Image: Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Caerlaverock Castle: The Roll of Caerlaverock

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Orikrin1998, CC BY-SA 3.0. Edward I arrived in July 1300 with an army that read like a directory of late-medieval English aristocracy: Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln; Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford; Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick; Thomas Earl of Lancaster and his brother Henry; Richard Fitzalan, Ea...

Read more: Caerlaverock Castle on Qualla

Image: Orikrin1998 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Caerlaverock Castle: Sieges, Sides, and a Dismantling

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Traveler100, CC BY-SA 3.0. The castle changed hands and loyalties repeatedly. Sir Eustace got it back, took an English pension of 20 pounds a year from Edward II in 1312, then switched to Robert Bruce, withstood a second English siege, and finally dismantled his own fortress so it could not be held against...

Read more: Caerlaverock Castle on Qualla

Image: Traveler100 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Caerlaverock Castle: The Renaissance Lodging and the Covenanter End

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Annotated by ArchaicW with: A Gatehouse range, B West range, C Banqueting Hall range and D Nithsdale Lodging range., CC0. In the 1630s the Maxwells, by then Earls of Nithsdale, added the most surprising building on the site: the Nithsdale Lodging, a Renaissance range tucked into the northeast of the courtyard. Nine large windows topped by carved pediments depicting armorials and symbolic sculptures ...

Read more: Caerlaverock Castle on Qualla

Image: Annotated by ArchaicW with: A Gatehouse range, B West range, C Banqueting Hall range and D Nithsdale Lodging range. | CC0

Caerlaverock Castle: The Estuary Around It

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland, CC BY-SA 2.0. Caerlaverock sits within the Nith Estuary National Scenic Area, on the northern edge of the Caerlaverock National Nature Reserve - 55 square kilometres of saltmarsh, mudflats, and grazing land that is one of the most internationally important wintering grounds for waterfowl and w...

Read more: Caerlaverock Castle on Qualla

Image: Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland | CC BY-SA 2.0