Tantallon Castle

Tantallon Castle

A wall against the sea

Tantallon Castle is one of the most dramatic ruins on the Scottish coast. Instead of a ring of walls all the way round, it is really one enormous wall — a curtain of red sandstone, with towers at each end and in the middle — thrown straight across the neck of a clifftop promontory in East Lothian, near the town of North Berwick. On three sides the cliffs fall sheer into the North Sea, so the great wall was all the defence the castle needed. Out in the water beyond rises the Bass Rock, a towering island white with thousands of seabirds.

The last great curtain-wall castle

Tantallon was built around the middle of the fourteenth century, which makes it the last of the great "curtain-wall" castles ever built in Scotland — the old style of a high, thick wall defended by towers, just before gunpowder changed warfare forever. Its red stone was quarried close by, giving the castle its warm, rusty colour.

The rebellious Red Douglases

For most of its history Tantallon belonged to the "Red Douglases," the Earls of Angus, one of the most powerful and troublesome noble families in Scotland. From this clifftop stronghold they defied even their kings. The castle was so strong, and the Douglases so hard to control, that an old Scots saying grew up for any hopeless, impossible task: to attempt it was "to ding doon Tantallon" — to knock down Tantallon — "or build a bridge to the Bass." In other words, it simply could not be done.

It was not for want of trying. Scottish kings besieged Tantallon more than once to bring the proud Douglases to heel, dragging heavy cannon to the clifftop, yet the great wall held firm again and again.

The end of a fortress

What kings could not do, the new age of heavy artillery finally achieved. In 1651, during the wars of Oliver Cromwell, an English army under General Monck bombarded Tantallon for twelve days with powerful guns. The pounding at last broke through, and the castle was captured and wrecked. It was never repaired, and slowly became the magnificent shattered ruin we see today.

Visiting today

A visit to Tantallon is a windswept adventure. Visitors walk out along the headland, pass through the great red wall, and climb its towers for breathtaking views along the coast and out to the Bass Rock, where gannets wheel by the thousand. Standing in the shadow of that vast wall, with the sea crashing far below, it is easy to understand why people once believed that Tantallon could never be brought down.