Lochmaben Castle
On his march south after the defeat of William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298, Edward 1st ("Hammer of the Scots") camped at Lochmaben to survey a site for a new and stronger castle of stone on the southern shore of the Castle Loch.
The peel was built on an island and surrounded by a ditch. When the water level of the Castle Loch was lowered by dredging the Valison Burn, the outlet from the loch to the River Annan, the castle site became a peninsula.
Although in ruins today, Historic Scotland have stabilised the remaining walls and hope to clear the outer courtyard of trees and scrub to uncover the network of ditches and give a better idea of what is considered to be the best example of an Edwardian Peel in Scotland.
The Peel comprises a rectangular enclosure, measuring 32m * 23m with an added block to the north side. The entrance was to the south, where there are the well preserved remains of the counterweight pit of the drawbridge, where the curtain wall is fronted by a canal 6.1m wide spanned by high winged walls at either end. Entry was through a roofed passage, with chambers to either side, and hall and other domestic apartments above.