Publication Account

Date 1977

Event ID 1018481

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018481

There was a royal castle at Peebles in the reign of David I (Barrow, 1960, 24). High Street runs directly to the site of the castle, believed to be a motte, placed strategically at the confluence of the River Tweed and Eddleston Water. It was a situation of considerable strength.

It is probable that the castle was destroyed during the Wars of Independence, for in 1334 when Edward Baliol, self-styled King of Scots, granted several towns, castles and counties of the Borders to Edward m, including Roxburgh, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Dumfries, only the 'town and county of Peebles' was mentioned, not its castle (CDS, iii, co. ll27). Also, from 1327 there ceased to be any mention of the grant often shillings annually made to the Chapel of the Castle of Peebles (Gunn, 1908, 50). In the fifteenth century the Castlehill seems to have come into the town's possession and there appear to have been some buildings in its neighbourhood. The mill and other erections on the south side of the Castlehill were expressly confirmed to the town by a 1508 charter (Renwick, 1903 (b), 22).

In 1720 trees were planted around the base of the hill and a site was laid out for a bowling green (Chambers, 1864, 262). Chambers made the claim that Peebles castle was still in existence by the late seventeenth century (1864, 262). This confusion grew out of an entry in the Earl of Tweeddale's Rental Book 1671-1685 in which 'Peebles Castle' is mentioned, but it was simply another name for the nearby tower house, Neidpath Castle (Renwick, 1912, 89).

Information from ‘Historic Peebles: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1977).