A Kerr-Handed Castle

Ferniehirst Castle, Roxburghshire A seat of Lord Ralph Kerr Rebuilt in 1598, this delightful Borders castle, built for left-handed people, was revived by bursts of sensitive restoration, as John Martin Robinson explains

- John Martin Robinson

Ferniehirst castle overlooks the Jed Water to the south of Jedburgh in the Borders and once commanded the road from Edinburgh to Otter burn and Newcastle, a key invasion and marauding route. In its early days, it witnessed all the violence to be expected of a frontier fortress, but, today, it is a scene of tranquillity and peace, a monument to the cultural and economic blessings brought by the Union of the Crowns and their two ancient kingdoms. A succession of three castles has been recorded on this hillside site since the 15th century, but the spot may have been first occupied as a forward stronghold, north of Hadrian’s Wall, by the Romans.

The medieval castle was founded by the Kerrs, a Borders clan reputedly descended from Vikings and recorded in Jedburgh Forest from the 12th century. By the 15th century, the family had two main branches, the Kerrs of Cessford (continued through the female line in the Duke of Roxburghe) and the Kerrs ‘of Ferniehirst’, so described by 1470, who are represented today in a direct male-line descent by the Marquess of Lothian as their clan chief. Lord Ralph Kerr, the present laird of Ferniehirst, is the younger brother and heir presumptive of the 13th Marquess of Lothian, better known as the MP Michael Ancram, former chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister of State for Northern Ireland, who now sits in the House of Lords as a life peer. Lord Ralph’s wife, Marie-Claire, who comes from a Fife family, is a leading portrait and landscape painter, several of whose works hang in the castle.