{{Short description|Medieval castle in Scottish Borders, Scotland}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Use British English|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox military installation |name = Fast Castle |location = [[Coldingham]], [[Berwickshire]], [[Scotland]]<br /> GB {{gbmapping|NT860709}} |image = Fast Castle - geograph.org.uk - 365002.jpg |image_size = 300px |caption = The landward approach to Fast Castle. The wall stack on the right has since collapsed. |map_type = Scotland Scottish Borders |coordinates = {{coord|55.9324|-2.2239|type:landmark_region:GB|display=inline}} |map_size = |map_caption = Location within the Scottish Borders |type = Courtyard castle |code = |built = Unknown, rebuilt 1522 |builder = First phase: unknown<br /> Second phase: [[Earl of Dunbar]]<br /> Third phase: George Home, 4th Lord Home |materials = First phase: unknown<br /> Second phase: Stone |height = |demolished = |condition = Ruin |ownership = Private |open_to_public = Yes }}
'''Fast Castle''' is the ruined remains of a coastal [[fortress]] in [[Berwickshire]], south-east [[Scotland]], in the [[Scottish Borders]]. It lies {{convert|4|mi}} north west of the village of [[Coldingham]], and just outside the [[St Abb's Head]] [[national nature reserve (United Kingdom)|National Nature Reserve]], run by the [[National Trust for Scotland]]. The site is protected as a [[Scheduled Ancient Monument]].<ref>{{Historic Environment Scotland|num=SM4328|desc=Fast Castle,950m NNE of Dowlaw|access-date=21 February 2019}}</ref>
==The castle== Fast Castle, in its heyday, comprised a courtyard and [[keep]], built on a narrow sloping plateau, {{convert|27|by|82|m}}, on an eponymous promontory overlooking the [[North Sea]].<ref name=rcahms>{{cite web |url=http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/59944/details/fast+castle/ |work=[[Canmore (database)|CANMORE]] |publisher=[[Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland]] |title=Fast Castle, Site Reference NT87SE 1 |access-date=16 May 2010 |archive-date=19 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019062208/http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/59944/details/fast+castle/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Cliffs up to {{convert|45|m}} high on either side rendered the castle relatively impregnable.<ref name=rcahms/> The plateau was surrounded by a curtain wall with towers, with the keep at the northern extremity of the promontory. The castle could only be reached by a [[drawbridge]] over a narrow ravine, protected by a [[barbican]]. Little remains today of the keep or the courtyard walls except foundations, and a section of the north-east wall.<ref name=rcahms/> The layout of the castle is very similar to that of [[Dunnottar Castle]] in [[Aberdeenshire]], though Fast Castle is on a smaller scale. Access to the sea was via a pulley system with basket. There is a cave at the foot of the cliffs, which, it has been suggested, could once have acted as an access to the interior of the castle by its inhabitants.
==History== It is unclear when the first structure appeared on the site, but its defensible position must have made it attractive to even the earliest inhabitants of the area. There is evidence of [[British Iron Age|Iron Age]] habitation here, and it was centrally positioned in the [[Brython|British]] kingdom of [[Bryneich]], and its [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] successor state of [[Bernicia]].
Fast Castle is first recorded in 1333.<ref name=rcahms/> In 1346 the site was occupied by an [[Kingdom of England|English]] garrison and was used as a base to pillage the surrounding countryside.<ref name=gaz>{{cite web |url=http://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst6225.html |title=Fast Castle |work=Gazetteer for Scotland}}</ref> In 1410, a force led by Patrick Dunbar, second son of the [[George I, Earl of March|10th Earl of Dunbar and March]] seized the castle and imprisoned the governor, Thomas Holden. Its new Scots governor William Haliburton was also able to seize [[Wark on Tweed|Wark Castle]], [[Northumberland]], in 1419.
The castle fell into the hands of the [[Earl of Home|Home family]] (pronounced "Hume"), and in 1503 they hosted [[Margaret Tudor]], daughter of [[Henry VII of England]], at Fast Castle ''en route'' to her marriage to [[James IV of Scotland|James IV]]. Following the Scots' defeat and the death of James IV at the [[battle of Flodden]] in 1513, in which numerous Homes were killed, a power struggle ensued between the [[John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany|Regent Albany]] and various other nobles including [[Alexander Home, 3rd Lord Home]], [[Great Chamberlain|Chamberlain of Scotland]]. Fast Castle was destroyed in the chaos in 1515, and Alexander Home was executed in 1516 and his land forfeit.<ref name=gaz/>
The castle was rebuilt by 1522, when the Home estates were restored to Alexander's brother [[George Home, 4th Lord Home]]. During the "[[The Rough Wooing|Rough Wooing]]" of Scotland by [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]], the castle was captured again by the English in 1547, but was back in Scottish hands by the time of [[Mary, Queen of Scots]]' stay here in 1566.<ref name=gaz/> The recapture of Fast Castle from the English is said to have been instigated by Madge Gordon, a Coldingham widow.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29030/29030-h/29030-h.htm |chapter=The Guidwife of Coldingham; or, the Surprise of Fast Castle |author=Wilson, John Mackay |title=Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland: Historical, Traditionary, & Imaginative |volume=VI |year=1885 |pages=1–21}}</ref> Again back in the ownership of the Homes, the English ambassador [[Nicholas Throckmorton]] stayed at the castle with the [[Alexander Home, 5th Lord Home|5th Lord Home]] on 11 July 1567, where he was "intretyed very well, according to the state of the place, which is fitter to lodge prisoners than folks at liberty, as yt is very little so yt is very stronge."<ref>Joseph Stevenson, [https://archive.org/details/selectionsfromu00stevgoog ''Selections from unpublished manuscripts in the College of Arms and the British Museum illustrating the reign of Mary Queen of Scotland'' (Maitland Club, 1837)], pp. 191, 197.</ref>
After the rebellion known as the [[Rising of the North]], [[Anne Percy, Countess of Northumberland]] was lodged at Fast Castle in March 1570.<ref>Jade Scott, ''The Life and Letters of Lady Anne Percy'' (Catholic Record Society, Boydell, 2024), pp. xxxviii.</ref> Fast Castle was briefly held by an English force led by [[William Drury]] in April 1570, while the [[Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex|Earl of Sussex]] besieged [[Hume Castle]] acting against the rebels and their supporters in Scotland.<ref>Krista Kesselring, ''The Northern Rebellion of 1569: Faith, Politics and Protest in Elizabethan England'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 108</ref> Some of the guns of Fast Castle were taken to [[Berwick on Tweed]]. These cannon included two brass merlins and four [[Falconet (cannon)|falcons]].<ref>''Calendar State Papers Scotland'', vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 156.</ref>
Ownership of the castle passed to [[Robert Logan of Restalrig]] through his mother, a widow of Lord Home. In April 1584 the keepers of Fast Castle, [[Innerwick Castle|Innerwick]], and [[Tantallon Castle|Tantallon]] were commanded to surrender their castles to the crown.<ref>David Masson, ''Register of the Privy Council of Scotland: 1578-1585'', vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1880), pp. 649, 657.</ref>
Sir Robert Logan was a notorious dissolute and "ne'er do well" who was implicated in the [[John Ruthven, 3rd Earl of Gowrie|Gowrie conspiracy]] to kidnap the young [[James I of England|King James VI]]. In 1594, Logan contracted with the famed mathematician (and supposed wizard) [[John Napier]] to search Fast Castle for treasure. He was to "...do his utmost diligence to search and seek out, and by all craft and ingine to find out the same, and by the grace of God either find out the same, or make it sure that no such thing has been there."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LVQZAAAAYAAJ |chapter=Weaknesses of the Wise |title=Chambers Edinburgh Journal |volume=132 |date=9 August 1834 |page=217}}</ref> For this, he was to be awarded a third of any treasure found. There is no record of any discovery he may have made. Logan died in 1606, and his estates forfeited in 1609, his corpse having been exhumed and put on trial.
[[File:Fastcastle.jpg|thumb|left|19th-century engraving of Fast Castle]] The castle was by now ruinous. It passed briefly to the Douglas family, then back to the Earls of Dunbar, then the family of Arnot, back to the Homes and finally to the Hall family. The castle is accessible from nearby Dowlaw farm with a steep trail leading to it. A concrete footway now replaces the drawbridge. Between 1971 and 1986 excavations were carried out at Fast Castle by the Edinburgh Archaeological Field Society.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cyberpict.co.uk/eafs/about.cfm |title=About us |publisher=Edinburgh Archaeological Field Society |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090624192303/http://www.cyberpict.co.uk/eafs/about.cfm |archive-date=2009-06-24 |df= }}</ref>
Fast Castle was originally known as ''Fause (lit. False) Castle'', on account of the lights that were hung from it to mislead shipping. Shipmasters would see the lights while travelling in darkness, and consider that they had reached a safe haven, only to find that they had been guided on to rocks, where [[Wrecking (shipwreck)|wrecking parties]] awaited for plunder.{{citation needed|date=January 2011}}
==Literary links== [[File:View Fast Castle Dunbar Bafs Rock North Berwick Law 1844 Cadell Print Waverley.jpg|thumb|View of Fast Castle, from Waverley Novels vol iv (1844)]] The castle is thought to have inspired [[Sir Walter Scott]]'s description of the fictional "Wolf's Crag", which features in his 1819 novel ''[[The Bride of Lammermoor]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/portraits/engravers/images/fastcastle.html |title=Fast Castle Berwickshire by John Horsburgh after the Rev. J. Thomson |work=The Walter Scott Digital Archive |publisher=Edinburgh University Library}}</ref> Fast Castle and Logan of [[Restalrig]] both appear in [[Nigel Tranter]]'s trilogy of historical novels, ''[[Historical novels by Nigel Tranter set between 1286 and 1603#Master of Gray trilogy|The Master of Gray]]'' series. The castle also features heavily in Tranter's ''[[Historical novels by Nigel Tranter set after 1603#Mail Royal|Mail Royal]]'', a sequel to the former trilogy. It is the setting for [[Kathleen Fidler]]'s 1970 children's story ''The Gold of Fast Castle''.
==See also== *[[List of places in the Scottish Borders]]
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Commons category}} *{{cite journal |url=http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_055/55_056_083.pdf |title=Fast Castle and its owners: some notes on their history |author=Douglas, William |volume=55 |year=1921 |pages=56–83 |journal=Proceedings of the [[Society of Antiquaries of Scotland]] |access-date=6 January 2011 |archive-date=11 June 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070611063143/http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_055/55_056_083.pdf |url-status=dead }} *[http://www.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-000-093-826-C Sepia postcard of Fast Castle], [[SCRAN]] *[http://www.rampantscotland.com/castles/blcastles_fast.htm Scottish Castles Photo Library - Fast Castle, Scottish Borders], Rampant Scotland
{{Castles in the Scottish Borders}} {{Authority control}}
[[Category:Castles in the Scottish Borders]] [[Category:Castles and forts of the Rough Wooing]] [[Category:Scheduled monuments in the Scottish Borders]]