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Archaeology Notes

Event ID 711644

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/711644

NT22NE 4 28071 27259

(NT 2806 2726) Blackhouse Tower (NR) (In Ruins)

OS 6" map (1900)

NMRS REFERENCE

Blackhouse Tower. This dilapidated tower of the late 16th century stands on the left bank of the Douglas Burn, in a remote valley. On plan it includes an oblong main block measuring externally 25ft. from N. to S. by 31ft. 9 in. from E. to W., and a circular stair-tower measuring 14ft. 6 in. in diameter which is situated at the SW. corner.

The masonry is rubble, roughly built and without dressings; such openings as remain are built without rebates for a case or frame. The walls are so much reduced that the first floor is fragmentary, while the undercroft shows two breaches, at the E. gable and on the SE. side of the stair-tower respectively, the missing part of the latter including the entrance.

Blackhouse was a forest stead, and in 1509 David Hoppringill of Tinnis obtained a nine-year lease of the property (Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland, 1, 1488-1529, No.1858) The tower, however, is later than this, and may have been built by the Stewarts of Traquair, who owned the place at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.

RCAHMS 1957, visited 1934

EXTERNAL REFERENCE:

ORDNANCE SURVEY

The remains of this tower are as described by RCAHMS: the walls stand to a height of about 15 ft.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 26 June 1962

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