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The village of Staplegordon about two miles above Langholm, in Eskdale,
has long gone. Little more than the kirkyard and a few outbuildings
remain now to remind us of what must have been a thriving rural
community in the past, when so many more people lived on the land than
is now the case. The 12th century Castle of Barntalloch or Staplegordon
as it was more commonly known in the past, stood on a natural eminence
overlooking the River Esk near the site of the village. There are traces
of the masonry of what may have been a 16th century tower on the summit
of the steeply scarped mote.
In about 1324, Sir James
Douglas received the lands, castle, and forest of Jedburgh with
Bonjedward, and the barony of Stabilgorton (Staplegordon) in Eskdale.
| 1342; Gift of Douglasdale (LAN), Carmichael (LAN, Selkirk Forest (SLK), Lauderdale (BWK), Bedrule (ROX), Eskdale (ROX), Staplegordon (DMF), Buittle in Galloway (KCB), Romanno (PEB), and of the (burgh) ferme of Rutherglen (LAN) |
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Staplegordon is mentioned in the resignation and subsequent
1342 charter; On 26th May 1342, Hugh Douglas 'the Dull' resigned a
substantial package of estates, representing the sum total of his landed
possessions, to the crown, in the presence of King David II of Scotland,
at an assembly in Aberdeen. Three days later, at Dundee, King David
granted these estates to Hugh's nephew William, lord of Douglas, and
clarified the legal succession of these lands, entailing them in the
male line.
The famous Johnnie Armstrong may have built the tower
here for he held the lands of Staplegordon from 1525 until his untimely
demise at the hands of James V in 1530. Johnnie Armstrong was usually
known as John of Stablegordon or John the Laird in contemporary
documents. Only rarely is there reference to him as the “Laird of
Gilnockie”, a later appellation that belongs to a time when his sketchy
history was fleshed out with the trappings of romantic fiction
See also:
•
The Douglas gazetteer
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