Cessford Castle

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Cessford Castle is a ruined L Plan Castle lying equidistant between the Royal Burgh of Jedburgh, and the Burghs of Kelso and Kirk Yetholm, in the historic county of Roxburghshire, now a division of the Scottish Borders. The Castle is caput of the Barony of Cessford, and the principal stronghold of the Kers/Kerrs, notorious Border Reivers, and sometime Wardens of the Middle March.

1 History
- 1.1 Overview
2 See also
3 External links
4 Notes
5 References

[edit] History

[edit] Overview

Built c. 1450 by Andrew Ker, the ancestor of the Dukes of Roxburghe, (it is from this place that the Duke takes his subsidiary titles: Baron Ker of Cessford (1616), and Marquess of Bowmont and Cessford (cr. 1707 Peerage of Scotland)), it is possible that it incorporates parts of an earlier structure. The fortalice was built on an L-Plan, with a main Keep with a wing of almost the same magnitude. With up to six storeys, two of which were Barrel-Vaulted, and with walls of up to 12 feet thick,. it was a formidable place of defence. The area with the angle of the building was enclosed by a single story defensive gatehouse, and the whole was surrounded by a Barmekin and defensive earthworks, a fact that is corroborated by the record of English troops having to use an Escalade to gain access to the Castle courtyard during the siege of 1523. The castle was besieged in 1523 by the Earl of Surrey who remarked: "It might never have been taken had the assailed been able to go on defending".^[1]