Qualla: Oliver Castle https://qualla.com/oliver-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/e/oliver-castle-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Oliver Castle https://qualla.com/oliver-castle Oliver Castle: Introduction https://qualla.com/oliver-castle/ Photo credit Motmit (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Almost nothing of Oliver Castle remains. Where the medieval tower once stood above the upper River Tweed, near the village of Tweedsmuir, there are only grassy banks on a low knoll. Two faint lines of defense, possibly prehistoric, are now confused with whatever the medieval castle left behind. A scheduled monument marks the site, but its identification with the castle has never been confirmed by excavation. Almost nothing remains. And yet the families who once held this castle did remarkable, terrible things across seven centuries of Scottish history. Their absences are louder than the stones.

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Image: Motmit (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/e/oliver-castle-wp/gcve-oliver-castle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Oliver Castle: Oliver Fraser and a Line of Sheriffs https://qualla.com/oliver-castle/ Photo credit Motmit (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The castle is first mentioned in a document around 1200 as part of the line of peel towers that watched the Tweed Valley for raiders. It was associated with the Frasers and may have been named for Oliver Fraser, who gave lands to Newbattle Abbey and whose name is preserved in the...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/e/oliver-castle-wp/gcve-oliver-castle-oliver-fraser-and-a-line-of-sheriffs.mp3 0:06 2 full Oliver Castle: The Knight Who Could Not Choose https://qualla.com/oliver-castle/ Photo credit Motmit (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Sir Simon Fraser is one of those medieval figures whose story reads like a tragedy of conscience. He swore loyalty to Edward I, then broke with him to fight for Scotland, then submitted again, then broke away again. His most famous victory came at Roslin in 1303, when a Scottish ...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/e/oliver-castle-wp/gcve-oliver-castle-the-knight-who-could-not-choose.mp3 0:06 3 full Oliver Castle: Sheep, Feuds, and the Lawless March https://qualla.com/oliver-castle/ Photo credit Motmit (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The Scottish Marches were notoriously unruly. Disputes ran on cattle and sheep, on long-remembered grudges, on whose grandfather had stolen what from whom. In an episode entirely characteristic of the period, Thomas Porteus of nearby Hawkshaw was arraigned on 16 February 1489 for...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/e/oliver-castle-wp/gcve-oliver-castle-sheep-feuds-and-the-lawless-march.mp3 0:06 4 full Oliver Castle: From Tower to Farm to Memory https://qualla.com/oliver-castle/ Photo credit Motmit (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. By the seventeenth or eighteenth century the Tweedies had built a new house near the old tower, reusing stones from the medieval ruin. That house in turn was replaced around 1780 by the present Oliver House, begun by Thomas Tweedie of Oliver. The old laird's residence beside it b...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/e/oliver-castle-wp/gcve-oliver-castle-from-tower-to-farm-to-memory.mp3 0:06 5 full