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Field Visit
Date 15 July 1915
Event ID 1106612
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1106612
Hirendean Castle.
The ruin of this castle is situated at an elevation of over 1000 feet above sea-level on the flat northern shoulder of Hirendean Hill. The ground falls steeply to north and west; on the east is the deeply worn course of the Hirendean Burn, and to the south rises the hill.
The structure is built of irregularly coursed rubble and is oblong on plan, measuring externally from north to south 25 feet and from east to west 44 ½ feet, with walls 3 ½ feet thick. Only the south wall and a fragment of the west gable remain; these show that the building had at least three storeys, the lowest of which was ceiled with a stone barrel-vault. The masonry is inferior, and the long and short quoins are undressed; the free stone jambs of the windows and of the entrance at the west end of the south wall, though dressed, are unmoulded. One jamb of the entrance is in situ and is checked for three doors, of which the outermost opened outwards.
The condition of the ruin is very bad; the upper portion of the south-west angle, where the wall is still standing for a height of some 30 feet, threatens to fall. The building appears to date from the 16th century.
There are traces of outbuilding immediately to the south and of enclosures to the west and north.
HISTORICAL NOTE. The lands of "Herringden" belonged to the Abbey of Newbattle (1). In this way they came with the rest to the Earl of Lothian, Lord Newbattle. A charter of confirmation to Robert, Earl of Lothian, in 1620, includes 'Herendene cum fortalicio'. In 1649 Patrick Scot was returned heir to his father, William Scot, in the lands and the 'steiding de Herring-deane' in the barony of Newbattle (2).
RCAHMS 1933, visited 15 July 1915.
(1) Reg. de Neubotle, p. 328; (2) Inquisit. Spec., Edinb., No. 1009.
