Bedrule Castle

Bedrule Castle, Roxburghshire - Photo ©
Walter Baxter, 6 November 2010

Bedrule Castle, located on a mound overlooking the Rule Water, was a large late 13th century stone oval enclosure fortress, founded by the Comyns. Its curtain wall, with five large round towers and a gatehouse, stands on a bluff on the east bank of Rule Water. In 1298, during the Wars of Independence King Edward I visited the castle and following the death of Sir John Comyn, in the early 14th century it was granted by King Robert I to Sir James of Douglas. In the 15th century it belonged to the Turnbulls, who later became a notorious Border Reiver clan. Once approached by a road from the ford to the north, only low turf-covered walls remain and east of the 'head dyke' wall, ploughing has destroyed all trace. The enclosure which was divided unequally in two by a cross-wall, is flanked by a north-west gatehouse and round towers to the south-east, west and south-west. Nearby is Fast Castle and 2 miles south is Fulton Tower.