Liberton Tower is a four-storey, square-plan
tower house
A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strateg ...
in the
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
suburb of
Liberton, on the east side of the
Braid Hills
The Braid Hills form an area towards the south-western edge of Edinburgh, Scotland.
The hills themselves are largely open space. Housing in the area is mostly confined to detached villas, and some large terraced houses. The ''Braid Hills Hotel ...
.
History
Located in Over or Upper Liberton, it was originally owned by the Dalmahoy family, whose arms appear on a carved panel on the south wall. Records of it being in their possession date back to 1453, but the provenance of the tower before that is not known.
It passed to a branch of the Forrester family of
Corstorphine
Corstorphine (Scottish Gaelic: ''Crois Thoirfinn'') ( ) is an area of the Scottish capital city of Edinburgh. Formerly a separate village and parish to the west of Edinburgh, it is now a suburb of the city, having been formally incorporate ...
, before being sold to
William Little, who was
Provost of Edinburgh
The Right Honourable Lord Provost of Edinburgh is the convener of the City of Edinburgh local authority, who is elected by the city council and serves not only as the chair of that body, but as a figurehead for the entire city, ex officio the ...
in 1586 and 1591. Provost Little built the nearby
Liberton House, and the castle was abandoned in 1610, being subsequently used for agricultural storage.
Deposits of
charcoal as well as smashed pottery suggest that the tower was caught up in the fighting around Edinburgh in 1650, when
Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
invaded Edinburgh as part of the
Third English Civil War
Third or 3rd may refer to:
Numbers
* 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3
* , a fraction of one third
* 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute''
Places
* 3rd Street (disambiguation)
* Third Avenue (disambiguation)
* H ...
.
[ Other evidence to this effect is the removal of the ]parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...
s, damage to the tower and the finding of cannonballs in nearby fields.[
]
Design
Liberton Tower provides a good example of a typical noble residence of its period, one of the relatively few that were not substantially altered in later centuries.harl
Harling is a rough-cast wall finish consisting of lime and aggregate, known for its rough texture. Many castles and other buildings in Scotland and Ulster have walls finished with harling. It is also used on contemporary buildings, where it pr ...
ing and has been described as "grim and ponderous".[ The tower is rectangular in plan, being along the east–west axis and along the north–south axis.]
References
Notes
Sources
*
{{coord, 55, 54, 53, N, 3, 10, 39, W, region:GB, display=title
Castles in Edinburgh
Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh
Listed castles in Scotland
Tower houses in Scotland