Burnhead Tower

NT51NW 6 51500 16707

Burnhead Tower. This little 16th-century tower, situated a mile and a quarter NE of Hawick, was originally free-standing, but has latterly been incorporated as the N end of a modern house. Oblong on plan, it measures 31ft 4ins from N to S by 23ft from E to W, and today has only two storeys beneath the wall-head, one less than in the original arrangement. The roof is modern. A parapet-walk, now represented only by its lower part, occurs on the N gable only and, apparently, was continued no father. The masonry is rubble with freestone dressings.

The entrance, a round-arched doorway fitted for outer and inner doors, is in the E wall and opens into a small vaulted lobby from which the staircase rises on the N side, while a door at the farther or W end admits to the northernmost of the two vaulted storerooms, an unlighted and featureless compartment. The second storeroom, into which the first opens, has a window on the E, either constructed or enlarged in the 17th century. In the wall opposite there is a gun-loop, now closed up inside. In the S gable a modern doorway has been broken out to communicate with the later part of the house. The first floor, which has been entirely modernised, contains two apartments; the larger one, which lies to the S, runs the whole width of the tower and opens into the smaller one, a little vaulted room partly contained within the wall-thickness at the NW corner of the structure. The stair is very roughly built and has no newel-post. Its lower part is straight, but higher up it wheel round within the NE. corner and rises to a door which formerly gave access to the first floor through a lobby. Its upward continuation to the roof-space has evidently been renewed. Between the first and second-floor levels it contains a stone sink, probably a 17th-century insertion.

In construction as well as in arrangement Burnhead resembles Goldielands Tower (RCAHMS No. 239).

In 1584 'Hobbie Elliot', laird of Burnhead, was accused of engaging in a foray. (Border Papers 1896)

RCAHMS 1956, visited 1932

NT 5150 1670. The tower is as described above.

Visited by OS (EGC), 14 January 1963.