#dirleton castle

[orofeaiel]

Dirleton Castle

[azvolrien]

Did a little day trip out into East Lothian last weekend, but forgot to post any of my photos nearer the time.

The first sight of the day was Dirleton Castle. It's a little unusual as Scottish castles go; by and large they tend to be either hilltop fortresses like Edinburgh or Stirling, or relatively small tower house-type castles that were probably built more to defend against smaller bands of raiders than to hold off a proper army. The 'generic' layout of moat + curtain wall + central keep that most laypeople will probably imagine if you ask them to picture a castle doesn't actually show up much in Scotland. This is because that kind of castle - e.g. the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Lancaster Castle - is largely an Anglo-Norman thing in Britain, and their influence in Scotland was limited. I can only bring one Scottish castle to mind that even has a moat, at least of the filled-with-water kind.

(Caerlaverock.)

Dirleton, however, was in fact originally built by a couple of Anglo-Norman knights called the de Vaux brothers, who were invited up to Scotland and granted some land by King David I, so it's a little more 'English' in style than some of its neighbours.

[edinburgh-by-the-sea]

new resident of the castle

[thesevenseasandbeyond]

Jardins du château de Dirleton, Écosse (août 2011)

[billsmugs]

Flickr

[edinburgh-by-the-sea]

the feasts that were

[l0x3k1tty-doi]

[azvolrien]

It's also got some lovely gardens.