Archaeology Notes
Event ID 718094
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/718094
NT57SE 11 59575 71347
(NT 5958 7134) Tower (NR) (remains of)
OS 6" map (1969).
Location formerly entered as NT 5958 7134.
For (successor and present) farmhouse and steading (to SE, at 59631 71241), see NT57SE 67.
Stoneypath Tower: The 15th century tower of the Lyells of Stoneypath is now a crumbling ruin. It is L-shaped on plan, built of rubble with irregular freestone dressings. Between the first floor and wall head levels were apparently three storeys, the uppermost ceiled with a stone vault. the upper floors are now completely ruined. At ground level, the walls are 9ft thick. The entrance was in the S wall at first floor level, where a modern doorway has been inserted. The basement of the main block contains a single apartment, 26ft by 14 1/2ft, with a chamber of similar dimensions in the mezzanine floor above. There are mural chambers in the lateral walls and a narrow window in the E wall; most of the vaulted ceiling has fallen. The wing contains two chambers. The hall occupied the full extent of the first floor of the main block.
D MacGibbon and T Ross 1887; RCAHMS 1924, visited 1913; C McWilliam 1978.
Clearance work in advance of restoration work has cast new light on the building history of this building. Discoveries include: (a) the fact that the original entrance doorway was at ground level in the re-entrant angle on the NW, and that this was blocked up at an early date and replaced by an entrance slapped through the W wall, again at ground level, and (b) that the ground-floor chamber in the wing has also been greatly modified at an early date. There is growing evidence that the tower house was subjected to a violent explosion at some time. Work continues.
C Tabraham 1993.
(Former index no. 777). Descheduled.
Information from Historic Scotland, Certificate of Exclusion from Schedule dated 25 November 2009.
Stoneypath Tower
(restored) [NAT]
OS (GIS) MasterMap, January 2010.
