Niddry Castle

Niddry Castle stands beside the Union Canal in West Lothian, a tall sixteenth-century tower house built around 1500 by the Lord Seton. It sits between two large oil shale bings, the waste heaps of Scotland’s shale-oil industry. The name once distinguished it from other places called Niddry, such as Niddry Marischal in Midlothian and Longniddry in East Lothian. The four-storey L-plan tower has a vaulted basement and a first-floor hall. A turret was added in the seventeenth century at the angle of the L, and the whole structure carries a corbelled parapet. The castle played a part in Mary, Queen of Scots’ flight after her escape from Lochleven Castle in May 1568. Claud Hamilton brought her here to write letters to her allies before moving on to Hamilton. During the civil war in 1572, George, Lord Seton garrisoned the castle for Queen Mary. Two chronicles record attacks in April and June, when defenders repelled night assaults by dropping heavy beams onto scaling ladders. Edinburgh Castle’s garrison raided nearby Merchiston Castle as a diversion to help Niddry. The castle later hosted Danish commissioners and Scottish nobles seeking royal favour. Visitors find a restored private residence with the original tower intact. The basement vaults remain, and the first-floor hall preserves its medieval layout. Archaeologists uncovered the surrounding barmkin area during the 1990s restoration led by Peter Wright. The tower’s corbelled parapet and seventeenth-century turret mark the phases of its building. A brief appearance in Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Abbot recalls Queen Mary’s last Scottish stop before crossing to England.