Liddel Strength

Liddel Strength was the seat of the barony of Liddel, an Anglo-Norman border fortification on a cliff above the south bank of the Liddel Water, overlooking its confluence with the River Esk — the last high ground before the Esk reaches the Solway Plain. The barony is thought to have been created by Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester, in or before the first decade of the 12th century, and given to Turgis Brandos, descending through his son to the de Rossedale line.

The Stutevilles were later Barons of Liddel, though their principal seat lay at Cottingham in Yorkshire, where they entertained King John in 1200. In 1174, while besieging Carlisle, William the Lion took "the castle of Liddell, which belonged to Nicholas de Estuteville"; a Stuteville was in the party of knights that captured William at Alnwick later that year. At his death in 1300, John Wake held both Liddel and the Scottish barony of Liddesdale.

A wooden motte-and-bailey to the end, the Strength was destroyed by the Scots in 1346; fragmentary remains of a pele tower later built on the site survive among the earthworks. A 19th-century theory of William Forbes Skene made neighbouring Carwinley a corruption of Caer Wenddolau — fort of the Celtic ruler Gwenddoleu, killed at the Battle of Arfderydd in 573 — an identification dismissed at a 1926 meeting of the local antiquarian society.