As one goes down Hermitage Water towards its junction with the Liddel, the country, one finds, is plentifully sprinkled with the ruins of peel towers,—abandoned rookeries of the Elliot clan, I suppose, for the Armstrong holdings were a little lower down. But in old days, when the de Soulis's held all Liddesdale, there were other strong castles besides Hermitage. Near Dinlabyre there stood the castle of Clintwood, and not far from the meeting of the two streams, on the high bank of Liddel, stood one of their strongholds—Liddel Castle. It was from this castle that the old village of Castleton look its name: the village was at first merely a settlement of de Soulis's followers.
The old Statistical Account of the Parish gives an extract from the Session Records of Castleton church which is of interest. It is as follows: "17 January 1649. The English army commanded by Colonels Bright and Pride, and under the conduct of General Cromwell, on their return to England, did lie at the Kirk of Castleton several nights, in which time they brak down and burnt the Communion table and the seats of the Kirk; and at their removing carried away the minister's books, to the value of one thousand merks and above, and also the books of Session, with which they lighted their tobacco pipes, the baptism, marriage, and examination rolls from October 1612 to September 1648, all which were lost and destroyed."
Castleton as a village does not now exist, and the old church has disappeared, though the churchyard is still used. The other village, the present Newcastleton, is of course entirely a township of yesterday—-to be precise, it dates only from 1793. But it is interesting from the fact that the present railway station occupies the site where once stood the tower of Park, the peel of that "Little Jock Elliot" who so nearly put an end to the life of Bothwell. What a difference it might have made if he had but stabbed in a more vital spot, or a little deeper.
Not far from Castleton was the home of the notorious Willie of Westburnflat, last of the old reivers, and—it almost goes without saying—an Armstrong; the last of those of whom it was written:
"Of Liddisdail the common thiefis,
Sa peartlie stellis now and reifis,
That nane may keip
Horse, nolt, nor scheip,
Nor yett dar sleip
For their mischeifis."