Caerlaverock Castle

Caerlaverock Castle

A castle shaped like a shield

Most castles are square or round, but Caerlaverock is shaped like a triangle — the only triangular castle in all of Britain. It sits in the flat, watery country near the Solway Firth, in south-west Scotland not far from Dumfries, surrounded by a wide moat. At the pointed end of the triangle stands a mighty twin-towered gatehouse, with a round tower guarding each of the other two corners. Seen from above, the whole castle looks rather like a shield laid flat upon the water, and even its name fits the marshy setting: in old Scots, "Caerlaverock" means something like "the fort of the lark."

The Maxwells' stronghold

Caerlaverock was built around 1277 by the Maxwell family, one of the great noble houses of south-west Scotland. Its triangular design was both clever and beautiful: the moat made it hard to attack, while the strong gatehouse let the defenders watch over the only way in. For centuries the castle was the heart of Maxwell power in the region, guarding the western end of the border with England.

The great siege of 1300

Caerlaverock's most famous moment came in 1300, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. King Edward I of England marched north with a great army and surrounded the castle. Although only a small garrison — said to be around sixty men — held the walls, they put up a fierce fight before they were finally forced to surrender.

The siege became famous because a poet who was there wrote it all down. His work, known as the Roll of Caerlaverock, describes the banners and coats of arms of the English knights in glittering detail, and it remains one of the most colourful accounts of medieval warfare to survive. Thanks to that poem, we know more about this one siege than about almost any other of its time.

A grand house within the walls

Over the following centuries Caerlaverock was attacked, damaged and rebuilt many times as the borders flared into war again and again. In the early seventeenth century, in a more peaceful spell, the Earl of Nithsdale — a Maxwell — built an elegant new range of rooms inside the old defences, decorated with fine carvings. But peace did not last. In 1640 the castle was besieged once more, this time by a Covenanter army, and after it fell it was abandoned for good.

Visiting today

Today Caerlaverock is a magnificent ruin, its red-stone walls still rising above the moat. Visitors cross to the gatehouse, explore the towers and the carved Renaissance rooms, and look out over the surrounding marshes — which are now a nature reserve famous for the huge flocks of barnacle geese that arrive each winter. Few castles are so unusual to look at, and fewer still can claim to have had their greatest battle turned into a poem.