Hume Castle

📌 Hume, Scottish Borders
★★

Hume Castle is a real oddity, its almost comical simplicity looming over Hume village. The shape just doesn’t look right for a proper castle, almost as if a child drew it: the battlements are far too large for any defensive purpose, and the corners are… just plain weird. So what’s going on? Well, it turns out that most of the exterior is a folly built by a rich owner in the 1700s on top of the original 13th century curtain wall. The folly encloses little more than a grassy, empty shell, although there are a few medieval fragments of stonework scattered around inside. Back when it had a serious purpose, the castle switched hands between the English and the Scots several times. Later on it was responsible for the Great Alarm, during its use as one of a chain of warning beacons in the Napoleonic Wars. A lookout mistook nearby charcoal burner fires for another warning beacon, lit the castle’s own, and in doing so triggered the chain lighting of every beacon to the west. 3,000 volunteers appeared in defence against a non-existent invading French army – an even bigger waste of time than building the folly…