Hume Castle is an impressive remnant of a late 12th or early 13th century castle held by the powerful Hume family, Wardens of the Eastern March. Standing as it does, on an impressive height above its eponymous castleton, it commands fine prospects across the Merse, with views to the English border at Carter Bar. It has historically been used as a beacon to warn of invasion, and its enormous walls were created in the 18th century. The history of Hume Castle stretches back to the 13th century, when William de Home acquired the lands of Home through marriage. In 1515, Regent Albany imprisoned members of the Hume family and captured Hume Castle. However, Lord Hume soon retook the castle and slighted the walls. In 1547, the castle was captured again by Lord Protector Somerset, during the ‘Rough Wooing’, and an English garrison was installed. Alexander Hume, the young 5th Lord Home, recaptured the castle in 1548 with the help of his brother Andrew. Lady Home was again installed in the castle in 1549 and complained of the behaviour of the French and Spanish garrison who had been obtaining credit from the villagers. Mary of Guise ordered the people of Sherriffdom of Berwick and Lauderdale to provide 320 oxen to remove the guns from Hume in 1558, which were taken to the fort at Eyemouth. In 1650, the castle fell to the forces of Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. James, 3rd Earl of Home was a prominent member of the Kirk Party and had refused to deliver the castle. Cromwell sent Colonel George Fenwick to besiege the castle and after a 12–hour bombardment, Colonel John Cockburn surrendered. The 17th century saw the demise of Hume Castle as a habitable fortress, and the Earls of Home had already established a new seat at The Hirsel by 1611. In the early 18th century, Hume and its environs came into the possession of the Earls of Marchmont, and Hugh Hume–Campbell, 3rd Earl of Marchmont, restored the castle as a folly. In 1804, on the night of 31 January, a sergeant of the Berwickshire Volunteers in charge of the beacon mistook charcoal burners’ fires on nearby Dirrington Great Law for a warning. Lighting the beacon at Hume Castle, he set in train the lighting of all the Borders beacons  to the West, and 3,000 volunteers turned out in what became known as ‘The Great Alarm’. Hume Castle was bought by the state in 1929, and in 1985 a restoration programme was undertaken by the Berwickshire Civic Society funded by the Scottish Office. It re–opened to the public in 1992, and was handed over to a charitable trust run by the Clan Home Association in 2006.