Fast Castle

Fast Castle is the ruined remains of a coastal fortress in Berwickshire, south-east Scotland, in the Scottish Borders. It lies 4 miles north west of the village of Coldingham, and just outside the St Abb's Head National Nature Reserve, run by the National Trust for Scotland. The site is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Fast Castle, in its heyday, comprised a courtyard and keep, built on a narrow sloping plateau, 27 by 82 metres , on an eponymous promontory overlooking the North Sea. Cliffs up to 45 metres high on either side rendered the castle relatively impregnable. The plateau was surrounded by a curtain wall with towers, with the keep at the northern extremity of the promontory. The castle could only be reached by a drawbridge over a narrow ravine, protected by a barbican. Little remains today of the keep or the courtyard walls except foundations, and a section of the north-east wall. The layout of the castle is very similar to that of Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeenshire, though Fast Castle is on a smaller scale. Access to the sea was via a pulley system with basket. There is a cave at the foot of the cliffs, which, it has been suggested, could once have acted as an access to the interior of the castle by its inhabitants.

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