Fast Castle

Fast Castle

Location	Coldingham, Berwickshire, Scotland
Established	Unknown, site occupied since the Iron Age
Last occupied	1609
Construction	First castle: - Unknown Second castle: - stone Courtyard Castle
Built by	Original Castle: Unknown, Second Castle:Earl of Dunbar, Third Castle: George Home, 4th Lord Home
Owner	Private
Entry	free

Fast Castle is the ruined remains of a coastal fortress in Berwickshire, south-east Scotland. It lies at Grid reference gbmappingsmall|NT861710, four miles north west of the village of Coldingham, and just outside of the St Abb's Head National Nature Reserve, run by the National Trust for Scotland. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, recorded as such by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS).

The castle

Fast Castle, in its heyday, comprised a courtyard and keep, built on a narrow sloping plateau, 27m by 80m, on an eponymous promontory overlooking the North Sea. Cliffs up to 45m high on either side rendered the castle relatively impregnable. The plateau was surrounded by a curtain wall with towers, with the keep at the northern extremity of the peninsula. The castle could only be reached by a drawbridge over a narrow ravine, protected by a barbican. Little remains today of the keep or the courtyard walls except foundations. The layout of the castle is very similar except in terms of scale to Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeenshire. Access to the sea was via a pulley system with basket. There is a cave at the foot of the cliffs, which it has been suggested could once have acted as an access to the interior of the castle by its inhabitants.

History

It is unclear when the first structure appeared on the site, but its defensible position must have made it attractive to even the earliest inhabitants of the area. There is evidence, of Iron Age habitation here, and it was certainly centrally positioned in the British kingdom of Bryneich, and its Anglo-Saxon successor state of Bernicia.In 1346 it was occupied by an English garrison, and was used as a base to pillage the surrounding countryside. In 1410, a force led by Patrick Dunbar, second son of the 10th Earl of Dunbar and March seized the castle and imprisoned the governor, Thomas Holden. Its new Scots governor William Haliburton was also able to seize Wark Castle, Northumberland, in 1419.

The castle fell into the hands of the Home family (pronounced 'Hume'), and in 1513 they hosted Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England, at Fast Castle "en route" to her marriage to James IV in 1503.

Following the Scots' defeat and the death of James IV at the battle of Flodden in 1513, in which numerous Homes were killed, a power struggle ensued between the Regent Albany and various other nobles including Alexander Home, 3rd Lord Home, Chamberlain of Scotland. Fast Castle was destroyed in the chaos in 1515, and Alexander Home was executed in 1516 and his land forfeit.

The castle was rebuilt by 1522, when the Home estates were restored to Alexander's brother George Home, 4th Lord Home. During the "Rough Wooing" of Scotland by Henry VIII, the castle was captured again by the English in 1547, but was back in Scottish hands by the time of Queen Mary's stay here in 1566. It was briefly recaptured by the English in 1570.

Again back in the ownership of the Homes, it passed to Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig through his mother, a widow of the 5th Lord Home. Sir Robert was a notorious dissolute and "ne'er do well" who was implicated in the Gowrie conspiracy to kidnap the young King James VI. In 1594, Logan contracted with the famed mathmetician (and supposed wizard) John Napier to search Fast Castle for treasure. He was to

"...do his utmost diligence to search and seek out, and by all craft and ingine to find out the same, or make it sure that no such thing has been there." [http://www.best-scottish-tours.co.uk/scottish_trivia/john_napier.html] "

For this, he was to be awarded a third of any treasure found. There is no record of any discovery he may have made. Logan died in 1606, and his estates forfeited in 1609, his corpse having been exhumed and put on trial.

The castle was by now ruinous. It passed briefly to the Douglas family, then back to the Earls of Dunbar, then the family of Arnot, back to the Homes and finally to the Hall family. The castle is accessible from nearby Dowlaw farm with a steep trail leading to it.

Fast Castle was originally known as "Fause (lit. False) Castle", on account of the lights that were hung from it to mislead shipping. Shipmasters would see the lights while travelling in darkness, and consider that they had reached a safe haven, only to find thet they had been guided on to rocks, where wrecking parties awaited for plunder.

Literary links

*The castle is thought to feature in Sir Walter Scott's "The Bride of Lammermoor", part of the "Tales of My Landlord", 1819. It is referred to as "Wolf's Crag", and also appears in Donizetti's operatic adaptation, "Lucia di Lammermoor".
*The castle and Logan of Restalrig both appear in Nigel Tranter's trilogy of historic novels, "The Master of Gray" series. The castle also features heavily in Tranter's "Mail Royal", a sequel to the former trilogy.

References

*National Monuments Record of Scotland Site Reference NT87SE 1 [http://lmid1.rcahms.gov.uk/pls/portal/newcanmore.details_gis?inumlink=59944]

Recapture of Fast Castle from the English instigated by Madge Gordon a Coldingham widow. Year 1549Story recorded in Wilson's Tales of the Borders, under The Guidewife of Coldingham or,The Surprise of Fast Castle

External links

* [http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featurefirst6225.html Gazeteer for Scotland]
* [http://lmid1.rcahms.gov.uk/pls/portal/newcanmore.newcandig_p_coll_details?p_arcnumlink=497899 Image of Fast Castle on the RCAHMS website]
* [http://www.rampantscotland.com/castles/blcastles_fast.htm Rampant Scotland]