Hume Castle

The ancient seat of Clan Hume (or Home), Hume Castle stands on a rocky crag overlooking the Merse, or Eastern Borders of Scotland. Our historic reseach found that it was probably originally an ancient hill fort, though the present castle dates from 1214, when William, son of the Earl of Dunbar, was granted the lands of Hume. It is an important early example of a rectangular courtyard plan castle, possibly the only one in SE Scotland to have survived Robert the Bruce’s policy of castle-destruction. A key defensive point in the Merse, the valley of the River Tweed which formed the historic border with England, Hume was the first in a chain of Scottish beacon stances to warn of English invaders. James II and Mary of Geuldres stayed at Hume shortly before the king was killed at the siege of Roxburgh in 1460. It was captured by the English several times before being finally deserted after Cromwell’s Colonels Fenwick and Taylor bombarded it into submission in 1651.

Acquired in 1766 by the last Earl of Marchmont, the interior was levelled and the upper parts of the curtain wall rebuilt as a landscape feature or ‘eyecatcher’ visible from his nearby seat of Marchmont House. After being taken over by the State in 1929, the bailey was equipped as a secret resistance headquarters during the Second World War. In 1980 it was declared unsafe and grant aided repairs were carried by the Berwickshire Civic Society, who repopened it to visitors in 1993. On 31 August 2005 it was handed over to the Hume Castle Preservation Trust, a charity administered by the Clan Home Association.

In addition research its rich and varied history, we have prepared a quinquennial condition report and access audit, and obtained budget costs for repairs and improvements to ensure this important monument can continue to be enjoyed by Humes and other visitors from all over the world.