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Liddesdale

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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the valley of Liddel Water, Roxburghshire, Scotland, extending in a south-westerly direction from the vicinity of Peel Fell to the Esk, a distance of 21 m. The Waverley route of the North British railway runs down the dale, and the Catrail, or Picts' Dyke, crosses its head. At one period the points of vantage on the river and its affluents were occupied with freebooters' peel-towers, but many of them have disappeared and the remainder are in decay. Larriston Tower belonged to the Elliots, Mangerton to the Armstrongs and Park to "little Jock Elliot," the outlaw who nearly killed Bothwell in an encounter in 1566. The chief point of interest in the valley, however, is Hermitage Castle, a vast, massive H -shaped fortress of enormous strength, one of the oldest baronial buildings in Scotland. It stands on a hill overlooking Hermitage Water, a tributary of the Liddel. It was built in 1244 by Nicholas de Soulis and was captured by the English in David II.'s reign. It was retaken by Sir William Douglas, who received a grant of it from the king. In 1492 Archibald Douglas, 5th earl of Angus, exchanged it for Bothwell Castle on the Clyde with Patrick Hepburn, 1st earl of Bothwell. It finally passed to the duke of Buccleuch, under whose care further ruin has been arrested. It was here that Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie was starved to death by Sir William Douglas in 1342, and that James Hepburn, 4th earl of Bothwell, was visited by Mary, queen of Scots, after the assault referred to.

To the east of the castle is Ninestane Rig, a hill 943 ft. high, 4 m. long and 1 m. broad, where it is said that William de Soulis, hated for oppression and cruelty, was (in 1320) boiled by his own vassals in a copper cauldron, which was supported on two of the nine stones which composed the "Druidical" circle that gave the ridge its name. Only five of the stones remain. James Telfer (1802-1862), the writer of ballads, who was born in the parish of Southdean (pronounced Soudan), was for several years schoolmaster of Saughtree, near the head of the valley. The castle of the lairds of Liddesdale stood near the junction of Hermitage Water and the Liddel and around it grew up the village of Castleton.