Why Is Hermitage Castle So Eerie?

Introduction

Hermitage Castle feels eerie because its hauntings do not float free from history: they grow directly out of Liddesdale’s violent Border past. The ruin stands in the historic county of Roxburghshire, in a lonely valley once important to the control of the Scottish Middle March, and Historic Environment Scotland openly frames it as an “awesome, eerie ruin” associated with intrigue, murder, torture and treason. It is famous less for one neat ghost story than for a layered reputation: the wizard-lord William de Soulis and his Redcap familiar, the starvation of Sir Alexander Ramsay, the grim memory of Border lordship, and Mary Queen of Scots’ hard ride from Jedburgh to visit the wounded Earl of Bothwell.[Historic Environment Scotland]historicenvironment.scotOpen source on historicenvironment.scot.

Overview image for Hermitage

The result is one of Roxburghshire’s strongest haunted landmarks. The most useful way to read Hermitage is not as a place where apparitions can be proved, but as a castle where folklore, political violence, ballad literature and tourism have fused unusually tightly. Some stories are attached to named historical events; others are later literary or oral traditions that turn the castle’s documented brutality into supernatural form.

The castle landscape and its violent history

Hermitage Castle stands near Newcastleton in Liddesdale, beside Hermitage Water, and its setting is central to the story. Unlike a town castle softened by streets and shops, Hermitage still reads as a heavy Border stronghold set apart in open country. Historic Environment Scotland describes it as “the strength of Liddesdale”, fought over repeatedly, and notes that even its thirteenth-century building brought Scotland and England close to war.[Historic Environment Scotland]historicenvironment.scotOpen source on historicenvironment.scot.

The castle’s haunted reputation also comes from its physical bluntness. The scheduled monument is not only the stone castle: it includes the castle, chapel, enclosures, probable deer trap, park boundary and farmstead remains, showing that Hermitage was part of a wider lordly landscape, not an isolated gothic prop. The present castle developed through phases from the later medieval period, and the official designation notes that Hermitage became the chief castle of Liddesdale after the older lordship centre at Liddel Castle.[Historic Environment Scotland]portal.historicenvironment.scotOpen source on historicenvironment.scot.

That matters for the hauntings because many Hermitage stories are really stories about power. The castle was not merely a defensive refuge; it was a place from which lordship was imposed in a tense frontier region. Historic Environment Scotland says that for most of its 400-year active life Hermitage was the key to controlling the Scottish Middle March, and it cites George MacDonald Fraser’s description of it as “the guardhouse of the bloodiest valley in Britain”.[Historic Environment Scotland]historicenvironment.scotOpen source on historicenvironment.scot.

For modern visitors, the phrase can sound like tourist drama, but it points to a real historical atmosphere. The Middle March was part of the Anglo-Scottish Border world of raids, reprisals, wardens, fortified houses and shifting allegiance. In that setting, a castle such as Hermitage was both a military asset and a symbol of threat. Its later ghost stories make emotional sense because the building already looks and feels like an instrument of control.

A useful sceptical reading begins here. Hermitage does not need a confirmed apparition to feel haunted. Its mass, remoteness, broken interiors, prison associations and exposed valley setting all encourage the imagination to connect place with violence. The “eerie” quality is therefore partly architectural, partly geographical and partly historical memory.

Hermitage illustration 1

Ramsay, Soulis and the ghosts of lordship

The darkest Hermitage legends cluster around two kinds of lordly violence: imprisonment by a rival and supernatural tyranny by a wicked lord. The first is the better-grounded historical story; the second is the more famous ghostly one.

Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie is remembered as the victim of Sir William Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale. Ramsay had won royal favour, and later clan and local-history accounts describe Douglas seizing him at Hawick and carrying him to Hermitage Castle, where he was imprisoned and starved. A Ramsay family history gives the traditional detail that Ramsay survived for seventeen days by eating grain that fell through cracks from the granary above the dungeon.[Dalhousie Castle]dalhousiecastle.co.ukDalhousie Castle The Ramsay FamilyDalhousie Castle The Ramsay Family

The Ramsay story is powerful because it feels horribly plausible. It does not require magic, only jealousy, factional power and a castle with spaces where a prisoner could disappear. Even when retold in legendary form, it preserves a hard Border truth: violence was not only cross-border raiding by outsiders, but could be intimate, political and carried out by men who knew each other.

The second and more folkloric figure is William de Soulis, often remembered as “Bad Lord Soulis” or the wizard-lord of Hermitage. Historically, William de Soulis was involved in the politics of Robert Bruce’s reign and was associated with a conspiracy against the king; later tradition turns him into a cruel sorcerer whose tenants finally destroyed him. Undiscovered Scotland summarises the contrast well: one account has de Soulis dying as a prisoner in Dumbarton Castle, while the famous legend says he was boiled to death at Ninestane Rig, near Hermitage, after his own people rose against him.[Undiscovered Scotland]undiscoveredscotland.co.ukOpen source on undiscoveredscotland.co.uk.

That gap between history and legend is the heart of Hermitage’s haunted identity. The historical de Soulis becomes, in folklore, a symbol of unbearable lordship. The story is not just “a ghost story”; it is a revenge fantasy in which a tyrant who seemed protected by rank and dark powers is destroyed by the community he oppressed.

The Redcap tradition deepens this. In Border folklore, redcaps are usually described as dangerous goblin-like beings linked with ruined towers and violent places. Hermitage’s Redcap is commonly attached to Soulis as a familiar spirit or demonic helper, often named Robin Redcap or Redcap Sly. Modern folklore explainers preserve the motif that a redcap’s hat must be kept red with blood, which neatly fits the Border setting of ruined strongholds and feud.[hiddenscotland.com]hiddenscotland.comOpen source on hiddenscotland.com.

The literary afterlife is especially important. John Leyden’s ballad “Lord Soulis” helped fix the wizard-lord and Redcap story in the public imagination, and the British Literary Ballads Archive preserves the poem as a literary text rather than a witness statement. The official Hermitage designation also notes that Leyden’s “Lord Soulis” and “The Cout o’ Keeldar” gave Hermitage prominence in nineteenth-century literary culture, recalling the dark deeds of the wizard-lord.[literaryballadarchive.com]literaryballadarchive.com4 Lord Soulis4 Lord Soulis

This means that Hermitage’s “ghosts” are partly literary ghosts. Redcap Sly is not documented like a named modern witness report; he is a folkloric figure carried through ballad, antiquarian writing and local retelling. Yet that does not make the story unimportant. It shows how Border communities and later readers turned the memory of violent lordship into supernatural language.

Mary Queen of Scots and later haunted memory

Hermitage’s royal haunting tradition centres on Mary Queen of Scots, but the story is more complicated than a simple “queen’s ghost” tale. In October 1566, Mary was staying at Jedburgh when she made the famous ride to Hermitage to visit James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who had been injured during a confrontation with Border reivers. The episode became politically charged because Mary was married to Lord Darnley, while Bothwell would later become her third husband.[Society of Antiquaries of Scotland]journals.socantscot.orgOpen source on socantscot.org.

The ride matters for Roxburghshire’s haunted history because it connects Hermitage to Jedburgh, another major county haunting and heritage site. It also turns a remote military castle into a stage in one of the most scrutinised royal lives in Scottish history. The University of Edinburgh’s archival description of a 1566 document states that Mary dictated instructions while lying ill at Jedburgh after the famous horseback ride to visit Bothwell at Hermitage Castle.[ArchivesSpace]archives.collections.ed.ac.ukOpen source on ed.ac.uk.

Later retellings often emphasise the extremity of the journey: a long, hard ride across rough Border country, followed by illness at Jedburgh. Some popular accounts describe a same-day round trip of around 50 to 60 miles, though the exact route and details are debated. A careful haunted-history page should treat the ride as real and important, while separating the documented political episode from later romantic exaggeration.[The Tudor Travel Guide]thetudortravelguide.comjedburgh and the mysterious near death of mary queen of scotsjedburgh and the mysterious near death of mary queen of scots

Mary’s supposed haunting of Hermitage is therefore best understood as haunted memory rather than strong apparition evidence. She is not tied to the castle because of a documented death there; she is tied to it because the place became part of a dramatic chain of events involving scandal, illness, Bothwell, Darnley and the collapse of her rule. Hermitage becomes a scene of emotional and political foreshadowing.

This is why Mary’s story feels different from Soulis or Ramsay. Soulis belongs to demonic Border folklore. Ramsay belongs to the horror of imprisonment. Mary belongs to tragic retrospect: the knowledge that a visit which may have been personal, political or dutiful was later read through suspicion and disaster.

Hermitage illustration 2

Why the stories became locally famous

Hermitage became famous because the place and the stories reinforce each other unusually well. Some haunted sites have strong tales but modest settings; others have dramatic ruins but weak folklore. Hermitage has both. Its hard, block-like form, open valley and documented role in Border conflict create a ready-made stage for stories of cruelty, sorcery, imprisonment and doomed romance.

The castle also benefited from nineteenth-century literary shaping. The official scheduled-monument record explicitly connects Hermitage’s cultural importance with John Leyden’s poems and with the castle’s place in the historical and literary development of Scotland. This matters because many readers encountered Hermitage not through medieval records but through ballad-like versions of the past, where history was sharpened into moral drama.[Trove Scot]trove.scotOpen source on trove.scot.

The Ramsay and Soulis traditions work especially well because they answer a human question: what kind of place was this? The answer given by folklore is severe. It was a place where a rival could be starved, where a cruel lord might command supernatural help, where tenants imagined revenge, and where the landscape itself seemed to remember blood.

Tourism has not invented this reputation from nothing, but it has helped keep it visible. Historic Environment Scotland’s visitor material leans into the ruin’s eerie quality and its tales of murder, torture and treason, while Scottish Borders tourism material repeats the “guardhouse of the bloodiest valley” image.[Historic Environment Scotland]historicenvironment.scotOpen source on historicenvironment.scot.

There is also a practical reason the stories survive: Hermitage is memorable. Visitors who make the trip through Liddesdale encounter a castle that still feels apart from everyday life. The setting makes the folklore easier to believe in emotionally, even for people who remain sceptical about ghosts.

How credible are the hauntings?

The strongest conclusion is that Hermitage Castle has excellent historical and folkloric credibility, but weak evidential credibility as proof of haunting. That is not a dismissal; it is the distinction that makes the site interesting.

The historical base is strong in broad terms. Hermitage really was a major Border castle, closely tied to lordship, war, imprisonment, the Douglases, the Middle March and Mary Queen of Scots’ 1566 visit. Official heritage sources support the castle’s strategic importance and its grim reputation.[Historic Environment Scotland]historicenvironment.scotOpen source on historicenvironment.scot.

The Ramsay episode is also historically rooted, though details such as the seventeen days and the falling grain belong to traditional retelling and family history rather than a modern forensic record. It is a classic example of how a real political killing can gather memorable narrative details over time.[Dalhousie Castle]dalhousiecastle.co.ukDalhousie Castle The Ramsay FamilyDalhousie Castle The Ramsay Family

The Soulis and Redcap material is much more folkloric. The historical William de Soulis and the legendary boiled wizard are not identical figures. Several retellings acknowledge that de Soulis probably died in prison at Dumbarton, while the boiling-at-Ninestane-Rig story belongs to local legend and ballad tradition.[Wikishire]wikishire.co.ukNinestane RigNinestane Rig

Mary’s haunting is weaker still as a ghost claim, but strong as cultural memory. Her ride to Hermitage is historically significant; the idea of her lingering spirit belongs to later romantic and haunted-tour readings of the place. It survives because the episode fits the emotional landscape of Hermitage: danger, scandal, illness and a queen moving through a hostile Border world.

For a reader interested in haunted Roxburghshire, the fair assessment is this: Hermitage is not valuable because it provides clean paranormal evidence. It is valuable because its ghost stories preserve how people have made sense of Border violence. The castle’s hauntings are a form of memory, turning feudal brutality, reiver conflict, imprisonment and royal tragedy into figures that can still be pictured: a starving prisoner below the floors, a red-capped familiar beside a tyrant, and Mary Queen of Scots riding back towards Jedburgh through a landscape already heavy with consequence.

Hermitage illustration 3

What to notice at Hermitage today

A visit to Hermitage is most rewarding when the folklore is read through the landscape rather than treated as a list of disconnected spooky claims. The castle’s isolation, its relationship to Hermitage Water, the nearby chapel remains and the surrounding earthworks all help explain why the place has carried such a dark reputation. The scheduled area’s wider remains show that this was a controlled lordly environment, not simply a lonely ruin.[Historic Environment Scotland]portal.historicenvironment.scotOpen source on historicenvironment.scot.

The most important stories to hold in mind are these:

Ramsay’s imprisonment gives the castle its most human horror: a political enemy removed into darkness and left to die.
Soulis and Redcap turn the fear of tyrannical lordship into Border supernatural folklore.
Ninestane Rig carries the revenge ending of the Soulis legend beyond the castle walls into the surrounding landscape.
Mary’s ride from Jedburgh links Hermitage to Roxburghshire’s wider haunted geography, especially the royal memory preserved around Jedburgh.
The reiver and March setting explains why violence here was not an ornament to the story but the condition from which the stories grew.

Hermitage Castle is therefore eerie in a very Border way. Its hauntings are not polite parlour ghosts or vague sensations in an old house. They are stories of power used badly, punishment imagined violently, and history remembered as something still pressing against stone.

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