Cessford Castle
| Cessford Castle | |
|
Roxburghshire | |
|---|---|
 Cessford Castle | |
| Type: | L-plan castle |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NT738238 |
| Location: | 55°30’28"N, 2°24’59"W |
| Village: | Cessford |
| History | |
| Built around 1450 | |
| Information | |
| Condition: | ruined |
Cessford Castle is a ruined L-plan castle in Roxburghshire, near the village of Cessford, equidistant between the Royal Burgh of Jedburgh, Kelso and Kirk Yetholm. The Castle is caput of the Barony of Cessford, and was the principal stronghold of the Kers or Kerrs: the family were notorious Border Reivers in the troubled times, but of several heads of the family served as Wardens of the Middle March.
History
Cessford was built c. 1450 by Andrew Ker, ancestor of Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe, and ancestor of the Dukes of Roxburghe. It is from this place that the Duke takes his subsidiary titles: Baron Ker of Cessford, and Marquess of Bowmont and Cessford. It is possible that the castle incorporates parts of an earlier structure. The fortalice was built on an L-plan, with a main keep with a wing of almost the same magnitude. With up to six storeys, two of which were barrel vaulted, and with walls up to thirteen feet thick, it was a formidable place of defence. The angle of the building was enclosed by a single-storey defensive gatehouse, and the whole was surrounded by a barmekin and defensive earthworks, a fact that is corroborated by the record of Henry VIII's soldiers having to use an escalade to gain access to the castle courtyard during the siege of 1523. The castle was besieged in 1523 by the Earl of Surrey who remarked: "It might never have been taken had the assailed been able to go on defending".[1]
After Berwick upon Tweed was captured by Richard, Duke of Gloucester in July 1482, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland burnt a number of places in the area. At the end of his campaign, on 22 August 1482 he knighted twenty of his soldiers at the "mains of Sessford."[2]
The castle was last inhabited in 1650.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Cessford Castle) |
- SCRAN: Cessford Castle, siege of 1523
- RCAHMS: Cessford
- RCAHMS: Cessford Castle
- Discover the Borders - Cessford Castle
References
- Groome, F.H. (1884) Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland in VI Vols. Edinburgh: Thomas C. Jack
