Qualla: Hawthornden Castle https://qualla.com/hawthornden-castle en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:16 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/v/hawthornden-castle-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Hawthornden Castle https://qualla.com/hawthornden-castle Hawthornden Castle: Introduction https://qualla.com/hawthornden-castle/ Photo credit Magnus Hagdorn from UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the autumn of 1618, Ben Jonson walked four hundred miles north from London to drink with a Scottish poet on a cliff above the River North Esk. The host was Sir William Drummond. The setting was Hawthornden, a 15th-century tower clinging to a rocky promontory in Midlothian, with man-made caves carved into the sandstone beneath it. Jonson stayed for weeks. Drummond took notes on the conversations, and those notes survive as some of the only first-person impressions we have of England's swaggering poet laureate. Four centuries later, writers still come to Hawthornden to vanish into silence, and the caves below still hold their secrets.

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Image: Magnus Hagdorn from UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/v/hawthornden-castle-wp/gcvv-hawthornden-castle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Hawthornden Castle: The Tower on the Promontory https://qualla.com/hawthornden-castle/ Photo credit George Washington Wilson, Public domain. Hawthornden's oldest stones date from the 15th century, when the Abernethy family - lords here since the 13th century - built a three-storey tower at the southeast corner of a triangular courtyard. The site itself does the defensive work: the North Esk wraps a rocky bluff on thre...

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Image: George Washington Wilson | Public domain

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/v/hawthornden-castle-wp/gcvv-hawthornden-castle-the-tower-on-the-promontory.mp3 0:06 2 full Hawthornden Castle: The Poet and the Caves https://qualla.com/hawthornden-castle/ Photo credit Magnus Hagdorn from UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Sir William Drummond of Hawthornden was born in the castle in 1585 and made it the heart of his literary world. He added the L-plan north range dated 1638 - a renaissance-style doorway, an iron knocker with his son's initials, gunports flanking the entrance for politeness's sake....

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Image: Magnus Hagdorn from UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/v/hawthornden-castle-wp/gcvv-hawthornden-castle-the-poet-and-the-caves.mp3 0:06 3 full Hawthornden Castle: The Heinz Years and the Silent Room https://qualla.com/hawthornden-castle/ Photo credit Alexander Nasmyth, Public domain. In the 20th century Hawthornden passed through unlikely hands. The last Drummond left it to his butler. Then it went to an Edinburgh antiques dealer, Douglas Adamson, who opened it to the public. After Adamson's death, it was bought in 1982 by Drue Heinz, the New York-born widow ...

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Image: Alexander Nasmyth | Public domain

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/v/hawthornden-castle-wp/gcvv-hawthornden-castle-the-heinz-years-and-the-silent-room.mp3 0:06 4 full Hawthornden Castle: Roslin's Quieter Neighbor https://qualla.com/hawthornden-castle/ Photo credit Magnus Hagdorn from UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Hawthornden sits a mile downstream from Roslin Castle, with which it shares both a river and a watershed of legend. Roslin gets the fame - Rosslyn Chapel and Dan Brown's tourists - but Hawthornden has always been the quieter literary cousin. Approaching by foot through Roslin Gle...

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Image: Magnus Hagdorn from UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/v/hawthornden-castle-wp/gcvv-hawthornden-castle-roslins-quieter-neighbor.mp3 0:06 5 full