St Andrews Castle, Mine And Countermine

SIEGEWORKS.

Siegeworks can seldom be identified, for commonly they were mounds hastily thrown up and afterwards easily levelled. At this castle, however, there survives a probably unique specimen of mediaeval siegecraft, a mine and countermine, tunnelled through the rock, which date from the siege of 1546-7 and must have taken some months to execute. On 10th November 1546 it was reported to the French ambassador in London (8) that "the Governor (i.e. the Earl of Arran) had mined almost to the foot of the tower by which he hoped to capture it, although the defenders were countermining and showed no great fear." As on the 26th of the same month the Scottish Privy Council resolved to ask the King of France to send hither 24 men skilled in the making and taking of fortifications, the mine and countermine, already in existence, are apparently of native workmanship.

The besiegers started on the far side of the ditch, to the south-east of the Fore Tower, where they were screened by an outer barrier, and drove a gallery 6 feet wide and 7 feet high northward towards the Fore Tower. It slopes downwards so as to pass below the ditch; the solum is stepped [SC 374867], and the clearance is sufficient to allow the employment of ponies in removing debris. The present length of the gallery is 62 feet, and if the incline was fairly uniform it cannot have begun much beyond the modern wall which closes its outer end. The tool marks make it clear that the work proceeded from the south northwards. When the gallery came below the counterscarp of the ditch an irregularly shaped chamber was formed, 27 ½ feet distant from the tower, as the mine-head from which branches might be run, but at this juncture the work was abandoned, for those within the castle had taken countermeasures. They were aware of the work in progress and of its purpose, though in doubt as to its course. To ascertain this they sank a shaft in each of the ground-floor apartments in the south-west front. Abandoning these when the direction of the mine was located, they started a countermine, apparently from a breach in the east wall of the Fore Tower where the masonry shows signs of disturbance. Guided as to level by a thin seam of coal, they drove their gallery to the south-east corner of the tower. There they seem to have been in doubt as to direction, since a branch has been carried for a short distance eastwards (Fig. 423), but they abandoned this deviation and continued on their first course, sweeping round the front of the tower for a distance of 35 feet, where, on locating the mine precisely, they changed direction and broke into the roof of the mine chamber (Fig. 419). Whether the present opening in the roof has been enlarged is not clear, but it is just sufficient to admit the passage of a single person. The difference in floor level between the mine and the counte-mine is 7 feet.

RCAHMS 1926, visited 31 May 1926.

(8) Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vol. XXI, part ii, No. 380.