In a valley in Midlothian about 12 miles south of Edinburgh, a tower house rises above the surrounding landscape to a height of around 30 metres — taller than any comparable medieval residential building still standing in Scotland, and in better condition than almost any of its contemporaries. Borthwick Castle was built in 1430 by Sir William Borthwick, and its exterior has changed so little in the nearly six centuries since that it remains one of the most visually arresting medieval buildings in Lowland Scotland. It is also, today, a luxury hotel — guests sleep in rooms within the actual fifteenth-century fabric, eat in the great hall where Mary Queen of Scots once dined, and can walk the battlements from which she escaped dressed as a pageboy in 1567. The combination of authentic medieval architecture and modern hospitality is genuinely unusual.
What is Borthwick Castle and where is it?
Borthwick Castle is a fifteenth-century tower house in the village of Borthwick, Midlothian, Scotland, about 12 miles (19 km) south of Edinburgh. It operates as a luxury hotel and wedding venue. The castle was built between 1430 and 1432 by Sir William Borthwick and consists of a massive main tower with two projecting wings — a distinctive U-shaped plan that gives the castle its unusual double-towered appearance from the exterior. The walls are approximately 4 metres thick throughout, and the tower rises to around 30 metres at its highest point. The castle is a Category A listed building and is considered the best-preserved medieval tower house in Scotland.
Which clan built Borthwick Castle?
Clan Borthwick — a Lothian family of considerable medieval significance — built and held Borthwick Castle from its construction in 1430 until the seventeenth century. Sir William Borthwick, who built the castle, was a man of considerable wealth and political standing, and the quality and scale of the tower he built reflects resources and ambitions well above those of a typical Lothian laird. The Borthwick family held the castle through the Wars of the Roses era, the Reformation, and the turbulent reign of Mary Queen of Scots, before eventually selling it in the seventeenth century.
How old is Borthwick Castle?
The castle was built between 1430 and 1432 — making it nearly 600 years old. Unlike many Scottish castles of comparable age, Borthwick has not been substantially altered, extended, or remodelled since its original construction. The exterior walls, the main tower, the great hall, and the vaulted basement all survive in essentially their original fifteenth-century form. The castle's extraordinary completeness is partly explained by the quality of the original construction — the massive walls and careful stonework have required relatively little repair — and partly by the limited number of owners who might have been tempted to modernise it.
A key fact: the tallest medieval tower house in Scotland
At approximately 30 metres (around 100 feet) from base to battlements, Borthwick Castle is the tallest medieval tower house in Scotland. The height is immediately apparent from any angle — the castle dominates the shallow valley in which it sits, visible for miles across the Midlothian countryside. The two projecting wings that flank the main entrance create a U-plan that further increases the apparent mass and height of the building. No other medieval domestic tower in Scotland approaches Borthwick in scale while retaining this degree of original fabric.
Mary Queen of Scots and the siege of 1567
Borthwick Castle's most famous historical episode came in June 1567, just weeks before Mary Queen of Scots's forced abdication at Lochleven Castle. Mary and her third husband James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, were staying at Borthwick when a force of confederate lords arrived to besiege the castle. Bothwell escaped over the walls in the darkness. Mary refused to surrender, and after an exchange of insults with the besieging lords from the battlements, she escaped the following night dressed as a pageboy — one of the more theatrical episodes in a reign that was not short of dramatic moments. She rejoined Bothwell, and within days the couple had been defeated at the Battle of Carberry Hill, setting in motion the chain of events that led to Mary's imprisonment at Lochleven and her eventual abdication. The window from which Mary is said to have escaped can still be pointed out in the castle.
Cromwell at Borthwick
Borthwick Castle was also besieged by Oliver Cromwell in 1650, during his Scottish campaign following the execution of Charles I. Cromwell's forces demanded the garrison's surrender; the governor initially refused but capitulated after Cromwell threatened bombardment. The castle sustained some damage during this episode but retained its essential structure. A letter from Cromwell to the governor — demanding surrender and threatening to make "a breach in it" if refused — survives and is occasionally displayed in the castle.
The great hall and the interior
The great hall at Borthwick is one of the finest surviving medieval great halls in Lowland Scotland — a large, high-ceilinged room with a massive fireplace, a musician's gallery, and vaulted recesses that give it both grandeur and intimacy. The room is used today as a dining room for hotel guests, and eating in it within the genuine fifteenth-century fabric gives a sense of medieval scale and atmosphere that no purpose-built hotel can replicate. The upper floors contain the castle's guest rooms, all within the original medieval walls, with views across the Midlothian countryside from windows that have looked out over the same landscape for nearly six centuries.
The collegiate church of Borthwick
Adjacent to the castle stands the Collegiate Church of Borthwick, founded by Sir William Borthwick in 1440 as a place of worship for the castle household and a perpetual chantry for prayers for the souls of the Borthwick family. The church contains fine medieval stonework and the tomb of Sir William himself — one of the more complete medieval tomb monuments in Midlothian. The combination of castle and church as a medieval complex gives Borthwick a completeness as a heritage site that individual buildings rarely possess.
Visiting Borthwick Castle today
Borthwick Castle operates as a hotel and can be visited by hotel guests and for pre-booked events. Day visitors can view the exterior, the church, and the grounds. For those seeking a genuinely medieval castle hotel experience within easy reach of Edinburgh, Borthwick is arguably the most authentic option in Scotland — more thoroughly medieval in its fabric than Dalhousie or most other castle hotels. Our Crichton Castle guide covers another remarkable Midlothian castle a short distance away, and our guide to staying overnight in Scottish castles covers the broader options across the country.
Why Borthwick endures
Borthwick Castle is the medieval tower house in its most complete and most imposing form — 600 years old, 30 metres tall, barely altered, and still in use as a place where people sleep, eat, and celebrate within genuinely medieval walls. For anyone with Borthwick ancestry or Midlothian family connections, it is a direct encounter with that heritage. Find your clan name at Celtic Ancestry Gifts — mugs, woven blankets, apparel, ornaments, and garden flags for hundreds of Scottish and Irish heritage names.
