Hume Castle is the location from which the Clan of Homes and Humes takes its name, though the site has been uninhabited now for several hundred years.

Hume Castle was for several centuries arguably the major defensive site in the Eastern section of the Scottish Borders (often called ‘the Merse’). It is placed in a commanding position with views described as the best in the Scottish Borders, sweeping down to the Tweed valley with the Cheviots to the South, past the Eildon Hills to the West and North to the Lammermuirs.

There are indications that a Castle was on this site from the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuries.

During the centuries when Scotland and England were often at war with each other, Hume saw considerable military action. James II of Scotland was reportedly based at Hume when he was killed besieging Roxburgh Castle. Mary Queen of Scots may have visited. The Castle saw action during the Civil War of the seventeenth century when it was destroyed following a siege by Cromwell’s English soldiers.

In the eighteenth century the Earl of Marchmont, a Hume, built the current structure reputedly to provide a point of interest on the horizon from his great house at Marchmont to the east of Greenlaw. The greatly oversized crenellations were said to have been built to be visible from Marchmont.

The Castle is owned by the Hume Castle Preservation Trust which is associated with the Clan Home Association.

For a fuller history and more information visit the Hume Castle Website