Hoddom Castle

The lands of Hoddom belonged first to the Herries family, allies of the Bruce lords of Annandale, then passed through the Carruthers family to the Maxwells. At the core of the present castle is a sixteenth-century L-plan tower house, probably built for Sir John Maxwell after he acquired Hoddom by marrying Agnes, Lady Herries. The fortified residence is closely associated with the Maxwell acquisition of the estate.

Hoddom became a contested stronghold after the reign of Mary Queen of Scots. Regent Moray besieged it in 1568, and it capitulated after ten hours on 21 June. James Douglas of Drumlanrig briefly used it as a base before supporters of Queen Mary recaptured it in 1569. The next year English forces under Lord Scrope attacked and blew up the tower. This sequence shows how a local Annandale tower was repeatedly drawn into the civil and cross-border conflict of the late sixteenth century.

The damaged tower was repaired and expanded in the seventeenth century to create a courtyard castle. Sir Richard Murray acquired it from the sixth Lord Herries, it passed to the Earl of Southesk in 1653 and to the Sharpe family in 1690. General Matthew Sharpe commissioned William Burn to design south and west additions around 1826, while later owners added neo-Jacob­ean extensions. These changes demonstrate a shift from a defensive house to a larger country-seat complex, though the sixteenth-century tower remained its historic core.

The military requisitioned Hoddom during the Second World War, and it was not reoccupied afterwards. Much of William Burn’s extension was demolished in the 1970s; the tower now stands derelict within a caravan-park setting, while remaining nineteenth-century additions serve as offices. It is category A listed, on the Buildings at Risk Register and on Historic Scotland’s Castle Conservation Register. Nearby Repentance Tower, probably built around 1565, once served Hoddom’s beacon and watch system before conversion to a dovecote.