Field Visit
Date 21 May 1913
Event ID 1089161
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1089161
214. Stoneypath Tower.
The ruin of this tower is situated ½ mile to the east-north-east of Garvald village on the right bank of the ravine traversed by the Papana Water 200 yards below its confluence with the Thorter Burn. The steep escarpment of the glen provides a natural defence on the north, west and south; to the east are traces of an earthen rampart some 12 feet wide at base.
The building is L-shaped on plan (fig. 177), measuring 43 feet 4 inches along the south wall and 50 feet along the east wall. The main block on the south has an external width of 31 ½ feet and the wing of some 26 ¾ feet. In the former, below the first or principal floor there is a basement with a mezzanine floor within the vaulted ceiling; between the first floor and wall head levels were apparently three storeys, the uppermost ceiled with a stone vault.
The walls are built of roughly coursed rubble with dressed corners and at ground are 9 feet in thickness. On a quoin at the south-west angle is a shield rudely incised with the arms of the Lyle family - fretty of six pieces. On the west wall of the main block there is a projection with a window to the south and a machicolated opening beneath, which could hardly have been defensive and probably was a garderobe.
The entrance was in the south wall at the first floor level, where a breach in the wall has been built up and a modern doorway inserted.
The basement of the main block contains one apartment 26 feet by 14 ½ feet, with a chamber of similar dimensions in the mezzanine floor above. Mural chambers are placed in the lateral walls and a narrow window in the east wall. The greater portion of the vaulted ceiling has fallen, filling the chamber with its debris. The wing contains at this level two chambers, but the more northerly is now inaccessible.
The Hall occupied the full extent of the first floor of the main block. It had a large fireplace in the east wall with a sink and drain on the south lighted by a small window. A window on the north has stone seats and a cupboard in the western jamb. On crossing the Hall the wheel-stair, somewhat unusually situated in the north wall of the main wing, is reached. It communicates with the basement and the upper floors. The upper floors are completely ruined. The tower dates from the 15th century and is now in an exceedingly bad state of repair.
HISTORICAL NOTE.
In 1494 ‘David Lile of Stanepeth’ was pursuing the free tenants of Duns in a case of multure to the mill of Duns, which he had feued (1). The Lisles continued there for more than a century thereafter. In 1609 George ‘Lyell’ was of ‘Stanypeth’ and had a charter of novodamus to himself, his wife Agnes Hamilton and their son and heir George, which included also their estates in Berwickshire, but this is followed, in the same year, by a resignation of the property and its transference to Alexander Hamilton of Innerwick (2). These grants include the castrum or fortalicium of Stoneypath, meaning simply the tower. Later (1616) the ,property was conferred upon Archibald Douglas of Whittingeham, when it is specified as having been part of the earldom of March (3), and in 1628 was in possession of William Douglas of ‘Stanypeth’ whose daughter married Arthur Douglas, nephew of the 8th Earl of Morton, and to this Arthur and his wife Stoneypath was conveyed with the barony of Whittinghame (4). In this way Stoneypath came ultimately to the Setons (5) from whom in time it passed by purchase.
RCAHMS 1924, visited 21 May 1913.
(1) Records of the Parliament of Scotland (1804) p. 447; (2) Reg. Mag. Sig. s.a. Nos. 73, 183; (3) Ibid. s.a. No. 1460; (4) Ibid. s.a. No. 1315; (5) cf. [RCAHMS 1924] Art. 213; R.M.S. 1668, No. 1154.
OS map ref: xi. S.W.
