Desk Based Assessment
Date 1967
Event ID 715816
Category Recording
Type Desk Based Assessment
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/715816
NT51NE 18 5980 1805.
Bedrule Castle. This castle stood on a bluff jutting W from the rising ground on the right bank of Rule Water (598180), 200 yds. NW, of the parish church (RCAHMS 1956, No.27). Here may be seen the last vestiges of a castle of enceinte, but the enclosure is incomplete as cultivation has destroyed all trace of building NE of a "head dyke" which cuts across the NE side from NW to SE. South-west of the dyke grassy mounds and heaps of debris are evidence of vanished structures, but give no clue to their date.
From the air, however, these fragments are seen to be components of a castle with an oval enceinte measuring approximately 200 ft. from NW to SE by 130 ft. transversely; from the curtain or enclosing wall there project a gatehouse on the NW, a circular tower on the SE and two intermediate circular towers on the W and SW. It is probable that two more towers, corresponding to the last, existed NE of the "head dyke", in the cultivated area. The enclosure has been divided unequally in two by a cross-wall running NE from the circular tower on the SW; between this tower and its neighbour on the W there has been a building bounded on two sides by the curtain and the cross-wall, while in the SE angle formed by the cross-wall and the "head dyke" there has been a second building. The gatehouse is approached by an old road, still traceable on the ground, which winds uphill from the river on the W.
The arrangement outlined above would suggest a date in the late 13th century. Bedrule then belonged to the Comyns and in 1298 was visited by Edward I (Gough); in 1315-21, following the death of Sir John Comyn, it was granted by Robert I to Sir James of Douglas (Reg Magni Sig Reg Scot 1984). In the following century it belonged to the Turnbulls, with whom it remained throughout the Stewart reigns.
RCAHMS 1956, visited 1946
Information from Ordnance Survey Index Card.
