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Accessing Scotland's Past Project
Event ID 562164
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Accessing Scotland's Past Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/562164
The ruins of Wallace's Tower, a sixteenth-century tower-house, stand in an arable field on the west bank of the River Tweed, about 200m north-west of the disused Roxburgh viaduct. What remains of the building stands no higher than the first floor, and the ruins are heavily overgrown.
The tower-house is rectangular on plan, with two wings projecting from its northern end. One wing, now almost wholly ruined, appears to have housed a stairwell and what may have been the main entrance, with a doorway visible at the foot of the stair into the main block. The ground floor of the main block appears to have been a vaulted chamber, perhaps a kitchen, while the ground floor of the other wing also contains a vaulted chamber which may have been a cellar or store room.
Wallace's Tower is named in a charter of 1543, which confirmed Walter Ker of Cessford (an ancestor of the present Duke of Roxburghe) as owner of the lands of the East Mains of Roxburgh. It may have been part of a chain of signal towers designed to warn of English attacks or other dangers.
Text prepared by RCAHMS as part of the Accessing Scotland's Past project
