Field Visit

Date 4 September 1913

Event ID 1088049

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1088049

RCAHMS County Inventory: East Lothian

This tower (fig. ISO), which is mainly a 15th century structure, stands within an enclosure about ¼ mile north of Prestonpans railway station. It is L-shaped on plan (fig. lSI) and measures over all 34 feet from north to south and 39 feet 6 inches from east to west; the re-entering angle faces west .The walls, 6 feet 9 inches thick in the main block and about 4 feet thick in the wing, are built of a soft reddish sandstone with grey dressings in 14 inch courses of stones 18 inches long, but the lower portion of the south wall, where a softer stone has been used, is much eroded.

The body of the building is 67 feet high and contains six storeys, while the jamb contains seven. The upper storeys, which rise 21 feet above and within a parapet walk, which returns round the building except at the north wall of the shorter wing, are an addition of the early 17th century, built in a lighter coloured stone and exhibit Renaissance mouldings on the jambs and entablatures of the windows. The remaining semicircular pediments of the uppermost windows bear the following initials. On the south side the initials S. I. H. are for Sir John Hamilton (1565-1644), and on the next a monogram which may be read S. I. D. K. H. apparently represents Sir John Hamilton and his second wife Dame Katherine Howieson. Their married life covered the years 1620-9, and it is said that below the monogram was the date 1626, of which only the first two figures now remain (1). A painted heraldic panel of wood, with round arch and fluted column decoration, which came from the old church of Prestonpans but is now in private ownership, bears the same initials (cf. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. vol. 26, pp. 241-50). Thus we get name and date for the builder of this upper portion of the tower. Of the eastern pediments one has its initials reduced to the letters S. T., and what may be the lower part of an H., while on the other survivor are the initials D. R. B., which seem to have been recut. The latter probably stand for Dame Rachael Burnet third wife of Sir Thomas Hamilton (1618-c.1672) and sister of Bishop Burnet, so that the other initials were apparently those of Sir Thomas. We should thus have a record of the repair of this part after its burning in 1650 and the novodamus charter after the Restoration (See below). Sir Thomas married Rachael Burnet after 1662

The parapet and angle rounds are contemporary with the upper storeys, but the corbelling appears to be earlier and might date from the 16th century. The windows, where unaltered, have a small chamfer worked on the jambs; the later windows have moulded jambs or backset margins or both.

The entrances to the tower are in the east wall and not within the re-entering angle. A great corbel, at the level of the parapet corbels, and a vestige of a neighbour show where a machicolated projection served these as a defence. The basement is entered through a round-headed doorway, which had two doors, the outer of timber, the inner an iron yett. Above the lower entrance, but nearer the south-east angle, there is a second, from which the Hall is reached. In form it has been similar to the other but at a later time altered to its present shouldered head. At the southeast angle of the tower the presence of raggles, corbels and mortise holes denotes that a hoarding of two storeys covered with a lean-to roof once projected from the walls. This construction has certainly been an addition, for its roof would prevent the use of the defensive feature above the entrance, and moreover the raggles and mortise holes have been formed after the walls of the tower were built.

The basement is barrel-vaulted and contained two storeys dimly lit by narrow window slits. The upper floor joists rested on the corbels still in situ 6 feet above the present floor level. The only internal communication between the basement and the Hall on the first floor is a hatch formed in the vault. At a late period an access was formed through the west wall at the southern end, leading into the lowest portion of the short wing-a prison or pit with vaulted roof-originally reached from a hatch in its vault. The only light and ventilation this prison received was from a flue some 7 inches square formed in a window breast in the apartment above, which leads downwards through the vault. At the north-west angle of the prison is a slop sink.

The chamber above the pit, probably an upper prison, is also vaulted and in this vault there is a hatch. It is only lighted by one narrow window. The stair at the north-eastern angle, which ascends to the Hall, is probably secondary. Above this chamber is a second, which is at the same level as the Hall; it has a vaulted roof; the north-wedst angle contains a fireplace, the south-west angle a garderobe.

The Hall is ceiled with a semicircular barrel vault and has windows in the south gable and lateral walls. In the north gable there remains in situ one moulded jamb of an elaborate 15th century fireplace; beyond it to the west is a rectangular and dog-legged mural recess. A staircase ascending from the Hall to the upper floors projects within the apartment at the south-west angle; though now entered from the ingoing of a window in the south wall, it was originally reached from the angle doorway now built up. Beneath the south window lay a mural chamber, demolished when the present entrance to the staircase was formed. The Hall has been coated with plaster, and traces of this still remain. An interesting feature is a moulded plaster cornice of c. 16th century, which returns across the north wall at the level of the vault springing, but below this the wall was probably panelled. .The remaining storeys call for no special mention.The building has been conserved within recent years and is in a fairly good state of preservation.

DOVECOT. One hundred yards north of the tower is a 17th century dovecot oblong on plan measuring 19 ¼ by 17 ¼ feet and containing over 1000 stone built nests.

BOUNDARY WALLS, ETC. The walls of the enclosure within which the tower stands date at least from the 17th century. The entrances are treated in the Renaissance style. West of the tower there is a square on the boundary wall, loopholed for guns, resembling those on the garden wall at Seton Castle.

HISTORICAL NOTE. Preston belonged to a branch of the Hamiltons from the latter half of the 14th century. In 1544 the ‘town and castle’ were burnt by the .English army under the Earl of Hertford. The’ house’ was again burned by Cromwell's soldiers in October 1650 after the battle of Dunbar, when also the ‘charter kist’ was ‘totallie spoiled and destroyed’ (2), and a new charter to all the lands of the family had to be issued in 1663 (3). Sir Thomas Hamilton was then the laird, succeeding under a special provision of entail made by his childless predecessor John, grandson of the Sir John Hamilton (1565-1644) who built the upper part of the tower. The family possessed also estates in Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire, and members of it are therefore occasionally referred to as of Fingalton in Renfrew. The tower was accidentally set on fire in 1663 and not thereafter occupied (4). The Preston family was of the Covenanting party, and the last male of the direct line was Robert Hamilton, who commanded the Covenanters at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge and died in 1701.

RCAHMS 1924, visited 4 September 1913.

(1) Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. vol. xxvi., p. 243; (2) Act. Parl. Scot. vol. vii., p. 98 ; (3) R.M.S. s.a. No. 416; (4) Prestonpans and Vicinity. P. McNeil, p. 187. Anderson's Memorials of the House of Hamilton.