Wallace's Tower is a ruined 16th-century
L-plan
An L-plan castle is a castle or tower house in the shape of an L, typically built from the 13th to the 17th century. This design is found quite frequently in Scotland, but is also seen in England, Ireland, Romania, Sardinia, and other location ...
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 ...
, about south west
Kelso,
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothi ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, in
Roxburgh
Roxburgh () is a civil parish and formerly a royal burgh, in the historic county of Roxburghshire in the Scottish Borders, Scotland. It was an important trading burgh in High Medieval to early modern Scotland. In the Middle Ages it had at leas ...
, west of the
River Teviot
The River Teviot (; gd, Abhainn Tìbhiot), or Teviot Water, is a river of the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, and is the largest tributary of the River Tweed by catchment area. The Teviot is an important river for wildlife, especially the A ...
.
[Coventry, Martin (1997) ''The Castles of Scotland''. Goblinshead. p.323]
History
The property belonged to the
Kerrs of
Cessford.
[ A charter of 1543, which confirmed Walter Ker of Cessford as owner of the lands of the East Mains of Roxburgh, mentions the tower. It has been suggested that it formed part of a chain of signal towers created to warn of English incursions.]
Structure
The tower comprised a main block, with a vaulted
In architecture, a vault (French ''voûte'', from Italian ''volta'') is a self-supporting arched form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while ring ...
basement
A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...
, and a stair wing, with a tower added at a corner.[ The main tower was rectangular, with the wings on its north.
One vaulted cellar, which measured by , had two aumbries in the north west wall. There was a service-stair to the north tower, and a door into a vaulted chamber (measuring almost by over with an aumbry in the south west gable) the lowest storey of the south wing. The tower is constructed of freestone rubble. Its windows, which are small, have rounded arises.][
]
See also
*Castles in Great Britain and Ireland
Castles have played an important military, economic and social role in Great Britain and Ireland since their introduction following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Although a small number of castles had been built in England in the 10 ...
*List of castles in Scotland
This is a list of castles in Scotland. A castle is a type of fortified structure built primarily during the Middle Ages. Scholars debate the scope of the word "castle", but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or ...
References
{{coord, 55.56705, N, 2.477074, W, display=title
Castles in the Scottish Borders