Today we were out castle hunting again in the glorious sunshine. We went to Bothwell Castle for the first time today, which is in the town of Bothwell on the edge of Glasgow in Central Scotland.
The weather was just stunning here in Scotland today and it made the pictures come out great. The stunning blue sky and lush green grass against the red sandstone of the castle looked great !
I have been wanting to visit Bothwell Castle for about 2 years now, but it was closed for a long time while it was under repair to make it safer to visit. So I was quite excited when I went on the website earlier this week and found out that we could go today!
Although a ruin, the castle is maintained by Historic Environment Scotland, a government body, and for a small fee you can get inside and explore it.
The castle was built in the 13th century, putting it at 800 years old. It played a major role in the Scottish Independence wars and changed hands multiple times between the Scottish and the English, and was subject to a battering by siege engines on many occasions (before the introduction of gunpowder based warfare).
Its quite an immense castle and this main tower called the Donjon, is particularly impressive. You can still see it well from the inside.
However, thats the view of the same tower from the outside and you can see it has been largely destroyed. Its quite impressive to see it from this side as you can see how thick the walls are - and they stand at 15 feet thick !
Although the castle is open again, there was still a lot of areas under maintenance so our access was restricted in places - but I think that was reflected in the entry price because it wasnt that expensive to get in.
The sandstone that it is built from is quite soft, and on the inside of the castle there was a lot of historic graffiti from visitors over the years. In the pic above there is clearly one date there from the 19th century - I cant tell if its 1822, 1872 or 1882 - either way - its quite a while ago !
You can walk right around the outside of the castle (for free) and it looks pretty stunning from just about all angles. The lovely round towers really add a lot of character and beauty to it.
These features on the outside of the walls are pretty interesting. I'm pretty sure they are poop-chutes ! Their toilets back in the olden days were simply holes to do your business in, which diverted the waste out and down the walls. So this particular point would have been pretty dirty and smelly in days gone by with 3 chutes all discharging down to the same point ! Nice !
I have to say that it was well worth the wait to get to see the castle - and the weather really helped too. It wasnt that busy - there was maybe only 12 other people visiting it while we were there, which meant it wasnt even remotely crowded. If you compare that to Edinburgh castle at this time of year - there will easily be 500+ people there at the same time. This was nice and relaxing !
We took our time and explored all of the inside and then took a full circuit around the outside, getting great views all around. It really was lovely.
I do think this is one of the prettier castles that I've seen. The sandstone is quite a lovely colour of red, and it has actually come out a little paler in the pics that it looked in person.
We all really enjoyed this visit, and I'd happily go back again. It was a 50 minute drive from where we live in Edinburgh, and very much worth the trip !
Highly recommended !
