Scotland · Ruin
Innerwick Castle
Innerwick Castle is a ruined medieval stronghold on a sandstone crag above Thornton Glen in East Lothian, Scotland. Built in the 14th century and extended later, it was besieged and damaged in the 16th century and today survives as fragmentary masonry on the cliff-edge.
Its prime
1540
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1540
What Innerwick Castle looked like in its prime.
Perched on the lip of a steep sandstone glen, the castle sits directly atop a layered red-tinged rock outcrop with its masonry bonded into the crag. The remains show a compact plan of coursed rubble and dressed stone, a surviving multi-storey tower or tower-stump at one end, and low stretches of curtain wall with narrow vertical window-slits and breaches; roofs and timber floors are absent today and vegetation clings to exposed stone faces, trees filling the glen below.
Its story
The story of Innerwick Castle.
Innerwick Castle was built in the 14th century on the edge of a precipitous glen above the Thornton Burn, five miles from Dunbar. A stronghold of the Stewarts and of the Hamilton family, it was besieged in 1406 by Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, to expel the forces of the Earl of Northumberland, timber beams were bought for the assault, perhaps to make a siege engine or effect access.
During the war of the Rough Wooing, James Hamilton of Innerwick was captured by the English and held for ransom by Ralph Eure, and in September 1547 the castle, by then extended several times, was captured and destroyed by Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. Mary of Guise mentioned the house in a letter of April 1560, while French forces were fighting the English at the siege of Leith.
A later owner, James Maxwell of Innerwick, became Earl of Dirleton, and the land around the castle was sold to the Nisbets in 1663. The castle survives as fragmentary masonry on its sandstone crag above Thornton Glen.
Step inside
6 places to explore in 1540.
The record describes 6 distinct spots at Innerwick Castle, including 2 interiors: tower interior and stair, basement vaults and cellars. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Clans who held Innerwick Castle.
The families that held Innerwick Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
From the archive
Innerwick Castle on paper: the measured plan and period views.
The survey plan and photographs below are the ground truth this page's reconstructions are checked against, drawn and photographed while the castle was still a working garrison. Every image is public-domain or openly licensed, with its source named.
Fig. 257. — Innerwick Castle. View from South-East.
1889 · MacGibbon & Ross, vol. 3 (1889)
Public domain
Fig. 258. — Innerwick Castle. Ground Plan.
1889 · MacGibbon & Ross, vol. 3 (1889)
Public domain
