Nicholas de Soulis built the first phase of Hermitage Castle around 1240 as a timber Norman motte and bailey. In the mid-fourteenth century William Douglas, 1st Earl of Douglas, enabled most of the present stone building, a tower house with a barmkin. The de Soulis family held it until around 1320, when William de Soulis forfeited it over suspected witchcraft and an attempted regicide against Robert I.
Sir William Douglas besieged it in 1338. The Black Douglases held it until 1455, and the Hepburns of Bothwell received it under a 1492 charter. Mary, Queen of Scots, visited the wounded Earl of Bothwell there.
The castle became obsolete after the Union of the Crowns in 1603 and was a ruin by the early eighteenth century. It passed into state care in 1930. Historic Environment Scotland opens it from April 1 to October 31.
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