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This site was fortified by the 1100s, and from around 1200 it was adopted as the main residence of the bishops and archbishops of St Andrews. As such, the Castle became the principal administrative centre of the Scottish Church and was the setting for some of the key events in Scottish history.

Little of this early Castle can be traced through the existing ruins. Certainly almost nothing remains of the earliest structure which suffered badly during the Wars of Independence and was finally rendered indefensible by the Scots in 1337 to avoid it again being held by the English.

Completed in about 1400, the "new" castle was the work of Bishop Trail. With steep cliffs protecting it to the north and east, thick curtain walls and rock cut ditches on its landward side it was built to be easily defended.

Within these walls were five square towers providing residence for the bishop, his large household and guests. Ranges were built along the inside of each length of curtain wall and further accommodation was provided in outer courtyards to the south and west.

As a residence, St Andrews Castle saw many notable visitors, including the young James I who visited in 1410. The castle also served as a strong and grim prison. An especially striking remnant of this role is the Bottle Dungeon, a bottle shaped pit dug 22ft down into the rock below the Sea Tower and accessible only via the narrow neck opening through a trap door from the floor of tower vault. Into this prisoners could simply be lowered - or dropped - and forgotten.
Foretower
Foretower
Main Range & Gate
Main Range & Gate
Countermine Interior
Countermine Interior

Further significant work on the Castle at St Andrews were undertaken by Archbishop James Beaton in the early 1500s following the Battle of Flodden. This was designed to withstand an attack by heavy artillery. Two massive circular gun towers, called blockhouses, were built on the landward side and heavy carriage-mounted guns were positioned at the wall tops.

Beaton appointed as his successor his nephew Cardinal David Beaton, an ambitious man who was already a prominent figure in both the religious and political life of the time. He was also a man who knew how to lose friends more readily than make them. His strong opposition to the marriage of the infant Mary, Queen of Scots to Prince Edward, son and heir of Henry VIII of England was a major factor leading to renewed warfare between the two countries in 1544.

Not satisfied with this, in March 1546, he had the Protestant preacher, George Wishart, burnt at the stake in front of the castle walls. This was subsequently used as a pretext for Beaton's grisly murder at the hands of local Protestant lairds who captured the castle by stealth.

A long siege followed on the orders of the Regent, the Earl of Arran. By November 1546 this had resulted in a stalemate that the besiegers sought to break with what has given rise to St Andrews Castle's second most chilling underground artifact after the Bottle Dungeon.

A determined effort to undermine the walls of the castle via a spacious tunnel large enough to take pack animals was intercepted, after several false starts, by the defenders. They dug a low, narrow and twisting countermine through the rock that eventually broke into the mine itself. Visitors are able to make their way down the countermine and into the mine, though it's not somewhere for those with claustrophobia or an overly active imagination.

The siege was eventually settled, decisively, in 1547 with the arrival of a French fleet which reduced the castle to ruins (see our Historical Timeline). Amongst those captured when the castle fell was John Knox.

St Andrews Castle passed next to the illegitimate brother of the Regent Earl of Arran, Archbishop John Hamilton. Although finally hanged after he was implicated in the death of Lord Darnley, he was able to rebuild most of the castle in his lifetime. The result was a much more grand and elaborate structure than the fortress it replaced.

The Reformation of the Scottish Church in 1560 had little immediate effect on the castle and its operation, but over time it became increasingly neglected. Its association with the church seemed permanently severed in 1606 when it passed to the Earl of Dunbar, but it did later return to church control before finally falling into ruin after the ascendancy of William and Mary in 1689.

The Lindsay Earls of Crawford obtained Edzell by marriage in 1358 and the castle remained with them until debts forced them to sell in 1715. They started the castle in the 15th century, and when the medieval accommodation became too cramped for them, built the extensive outbuildings to the west and north during the 16th and 17th centuries. Mary Queen of Scots stayed here (as she did almost every Scottish castle it would seem), as did her son James VI on two occasions.

The finest feature of the castle today is its walled garden. After the Lindsays sold up, the castle fell on hard times, suffering firstly at the hands of the government troops that were garrisoned there during the ’45, and later at the hands of creditors, who stripped it of anything of value, including much of the stonework, and the beech trees that once lined the drive. Despite the depredations of the last couple of centuries, the red sandstone remains are still a fine sight, are open to the (paying) public and are well worth a visit - particularly of course, the garden in summer!

("Dum spiro spero" (see the topiary in the photo) is Latin for "While I breathe, I hope"!)