Berwick upon Tweed

[fred.]

They are some cool looking strongholds - the gateway on the second one is huge!

Are you interested in some photo feedback on these?

[Bodvoc]

Hi Dan, could you let us know whereabouts these are as they look well worth a visit.

[Ithoriel]

Couple more Scottish castles - Dirleton (top) is in East Lothian and Craigmillar (bottom) is in South East Edinburgh

[DanJ]

Hi Dan, could you let us know whereabouts these are as they look well worth a visit.

Hermitage is here and quite easy to find

Newcastleton, Roxburghshire, Scotland
GB grid reference NY495960

Smailholm is here:

Smailholm, about five miles (8 km) west of Kelso in the Scottish Borders grid reference NT637346

What looks like a huge gateway is, if memory servers, simply a big arch connecting the two corner towers, I'm pretty sure there's another one on the other side the actual door way is pretty small.  Hemitage was the seat of the Armstrongs in Liddesdale, a notorious reveiving family.  One of my favourite  (and probably apocryphal ) stories from the border has a stranger at a border gathering, possibly a pub, being so appalled at the behaviour that he asked "Are there no Christian Men here?" to which someone replied "No, there's only Armstrongs and Elliots"

[Westmarcher]

Britain is full of gems like these. The reason most of them seem to survive is that many of them are away out in the sticks somewhere so a car is essential. I am a long standing member of Friends of Historic Scotland. It means I can flash my ... er ... card and walk into any of the 400+ Historic Scotland sites without having to pay any entry fee (including Edinburgh and Stirling castles). I get a quarterly magazine and there is also a 20% retail discount in all Historic Scotland shops incl. books (but not booze - boo hiss!  - I think its still 10% for booze).

What may be of interest to non-Scottish residents (and there are many non-Scottish resident members), are the reciprocal arrangements with the 500+ properties of English Heritage, Cadw (Welsh) and Manx National Heritage. In your first FoHS year of membership, entry in these properties is half price and free in your second and subsequent years. In my first few years, I can say I certainly got my money's worth to the extent one of my daughters once howled, "Oh no, not another castle!" - she eventually went on to study archaelogy at university (although nowadays I'm probably subsidising them). And it was great when we went on holiday in England and Wales. Tourists can also get a short term pass which may offer some decent savings. Looking for some fresh air and an excuse to go somewhere on holiday or on a weekend? In my view, well worth it! 

P.S. You probably think I am on some sort of retainer, here, for recommending these great organisations that look after our heritage. Alas, no. Here are some links below for more details (sorry if any link doesn't work - site addresses are valid however). 

www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/
www.english-heritage.org.uk
www.cadw.wales.gov.uk
www.gov.im/mnh

[Bodvoc]

Thanks for the info Dan, my family and I are heading up to the borders at Easter for a week so we need a few places of interest to visit. These are now noted as some of the places I wish to visit.
Cheers!