Scottish Castles - St Andrews, Scottish Gifts of Pictures of Scotland.

Scottish Castles and Monuments Your Online Shopping for Pictures

St Andrews Castle
There has been a fortification of some sort at this site since the late 1100's. St. Andrews castle has been through many changes in ownership. It fell to the English in the early 1300's. The Scots retook the castle in 1314 but once again the English captured it in 1330. The Scots recovered the site in 1337. After this siege, the Scots destroyed the castle so that the English would find it unusable.
Reconstruction was undertaken in the late 14th century by Bishop Walter Trail. During the 1400's, the Sea Tower was used as a state prison and had a bottle dungeon.
The other unusual attraction is the existence of a mine and countermine used when the castle was under siege in 1546-1547. There were two false starts on a countermine that can be seen inside the entry gate. These might have been used as soundings to determine the direction to dig or to provide false directions to the attackers.