Elphinstone Tower, also known as Dunmore Tower or Airth Tower, is a ruined

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, to command and defend strategic points ...

on the Dunmore Estate in central Scotland. It is located north-west of

Airth Airth () is a Royal Burgh, village, former trading port and civil parish in Falkirk, Scotland. It is north of Falkirk town and sits on the banks of the River Forth. Airth lies on the A905 road between Grangemouth and Stirling and is overlooked ...

and east of

Stirling Stirling (; ; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Central Belt, central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town#Scotland, market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the roya ...

in the

Falkirk Falkirk ( ; ; ) is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had a resident population of 32,422 at the ...

council area {{Unreferenced, date=May 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) A council area is one of the areas defined in Schedule 1 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 and is under the control of one of the local authorities in Scotland created by that Ac ...

. The 16th-century ruin is protected as a category C(S) listed building.

History

The tower dates to the early 16th century, when it was built by Sir John Elphinstone as the seat of the

barony Barony may refer to: * Barony, the peerage, office of, or territory held by a baron * Barony, the title and land held in fealty by a feudal baron * Barony (county division), a type of administrative or geographical division in parts of the British ...

of Elphinstone.

Alexander Elphinstone, 4th Lord Elphinstone Alexander Elphinstone, 4th Lord Elphinstone (1552-1638), was a Scottish courtier, landowner, and Lord Treasurer. Alexander Elphinstone was the son of Robert Elphinstone, 3rd Lord Elphinstone (1530-1602) and Margaret Drummond, daughter of Sir Jo ...

added a gallery and a new hall before his death in 1638.''HMC 9th Report: Lord Elphinstone'' (London, 1884), p. 193-4. The Elphinstone Estate was purchased for £16,000 by John Murray, son of the 3rd

Earl of Dunmore Earl of Dunmore is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. The title Earl of Dunmore was created in 1686 for Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore, Lord Charles Murray, son of John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl. The title passed down through genera ...

, in 1754. Two years later he inherited the earldom, and renamed the estate Dunmore after his title. Lord Dunmore built the famous

Dunmore Pineapple Dunmore from the or , meaning "great fort", may refer to: People * Dunmore (surname) * Earl of Dunmore, a title in the Peerage of Scotland, includes a list of earls * Countess of Dunmore (disambiguation), a list of wives of earls of Dunmore Plac ...

elsewhere on the estate in 1761. The tower was extended at some point, although there is little evidence that it was occupied. In the 1820s the 5th Earl commissioned the building of Dunmore Park as the principal residence on the estate. The additions to the tower were demolished to allow construction of St Andrew's Episcopal Church, a private chapel completed around 1850. The tower was subsequently restored and the ground floor remodelled as a family burial vault. The Murray family left Dunmore in 1911, and the tower has since decayed. St Andrew's Church was demolished in the early 1960s, and the north-west angle of the tower collapsed after a storm around 1968. The tower stands , and the walls are high to the parapet.

References

{{coord, 56.0803, N, 3.7850, W, region:GB, display=title Category C listed buildings in Falkirk (council area) Ruined castles in Falkirk (council area)

History

See also

References