Isle Tower
Tower House (Medieval)
Site Name Isle Tower
Classification Tower House (Medieval)
Alternative Name(s) Isle Of Lochar; Bankend; Lochar Tower; Isle Of Caerlaverock; Greenhill Tower
Canmore ID 66096
Site Number NY06NW 3
NGR NY 02793 68969
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/66096
- Council Dumfries And Galloway
- Parish Caerlaverock
- Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
- Former District Nithsdale
- Former County Dumfries-shire
NY06NW 3 0279 6898.
(NY 0279 6898) Isle Tower (NR) (remains of)
OS 1:10000 map (1971)
Bankend or Isle Castle (named Lochar Tower by A M T Maxwell-Irving (1974)) is protected on three sides by the Lochar Water, and on the fourth, the SW, by a ditch which still holds water. The building, on the T-plan, is in a state of complete ruin, a considerable part of the SW wall having fallen although the corners remain to almost their original height. Though the castle is mentioned in an English report of the 1560's the present building bears the date 1622 on a panel in the NE wall. There are traces of building on each side of the Lochar Water, indicating that the tower may have been surrounded by walls.
D MacGibbon and T Ross 1892; RCAHMS 1920
This building, known locally as Isle Tower, is generally as described above. The northern half still stands to a height of about 8.0m to 9.0m. The SW angle is reduced to ground level and the NW angle, although still about 2.0m high, has shifted considerably due to subsidence. No trace was seen of the date stone mentioned by the RCAHMS. There is no evidence of a ditch to the SW, other than a modern ditch (NY 0273 6902 - NY 0280 6877). No evidence of building foundations was seen around or near the tower, the area being under oats at the time of visit.
Visited by OS (WDJ) 9 August 1965.
For references to all the names that have been used for this tower, see extract on Lochar Tower, by Alisdair Maxwell Irving, in Bibliography.
Field Visit (August 1913)
Bankend or Isle Castle.
This ruined castle occupies a spit of marshland on the west bank of the Lochar Water, by which it is almost surrounded on three sides, while indications of a ditch remain on the south-western side. The site is near the south-eastern extremity of the Lochar Moss, distant some 5 ½ miles by road from Dumfries and about 2 miles to the north of Caerlaverock Castle. The building is of the type known as the T plan, consisting of an oblong, measuring some 22 ½ feet by 15 ½ feet, within walls fully 3 feet in thickness, and a staircase wing in the centre of the north-west wall with a projection of 9 feet 6 inches and a width of about 11 feet. The doorway is on the ground level at the eastern re-entering angle, and has a deep bar-hole formed in the north-western jamb, also a lamp recess adjoining it at the stair-foot. The ground floor appears to have been vaulted and defended on three sides by circular loopholes widely splayed to the exterior and square within, while on the north-east side facing the Lochar Water is a window measuring about 18 inches in width. The castle is now a complete ruin; almost the whole of the south-east and south-west wall has fallen, but the remaining fragments of the staircase wing and of the north-west wall indicate that it was originally four storeys in height. The entrance doorway appears to have been defended by a bretasche supported by moulded corbels placed near the level of the wallhead. On the north-eastern wall of the staircase wing is a panel containing the arms and initials of Edward Maxwell and Helen Douglas, his wife, with the date 1622 carved in relief.
"The Bank Ende" was selected in the Military Report of some date between 1563 and 1566 as one of the places which would strengthen an English occupation of the district (1). "It will havand Annande fortifyed... may (make) that way to Drumfreis for Englande to be free, and bring all Nythisdale in subjection. It is a straite passage, and may be well kept being ones fortifyed." So important was its position considered that Caerlaverock was to be relegated to the position of "a garrisone assistant".
RCAHMS 1920, visited August 1913.
(1) Armstrong's Liddesdale, App. lxx. p. cix.
