Douglas Castle

Douglas Castle stands in South Lanarkshire, south-west Scotland, about one kilometre north-east of the village of Douglas. The first stronghold was built in the 13th century and replaced several times before a large mansion replaced it in the 18th century. This mansion was demolished in 1938, leaving only a single corner tower from the 17th-century castle. The tower rises three storeys and nine metres above a small cellar block with glazed tiles. The site sits on a rise above the Douglas Water, giving views across the valley. The castle was the power base of the Douglas family for centuries and the seat of Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home. In 1307 Sir James Douglas recaptured the castle from the English and had the garrison killed, an event known as ‘Douglas’ larder’. The family’s struggles with the Stewart monarchy led to the castle being sacked in 1455. In 1703 the 3rd Marquess became Duke of Douglas and rebuilt the castle before it burned in 1755, leaving only the corner tower. The Adam brothers designed a vast castellated mansion that was never completed, and mining in the 1930s forced its demolition. Today the ruined corner tower is all that remains of the penultimate castle. The tower once marked a corner of an enclosure estimated at forty metres across. Sir Walter Scott used the site and its early history as the inspiration for his novel Castle Dangerous. Below the tower a small cellar block survives with glazed tiles on its interior walls. Nothing of the later mansion is visible above ground. A former lodge survives at the Cairn Lodge service area on the M74.