Boreland
Tower House (Medieval)
Site Name Boreland
Classification Tower House (Medieval)
Alternative Name(s) Boreland Tower; Kinnel Water
Canmore ID 66368
Site Number NY09NE 6
NGR NY 0652 9574
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/66368
- Council Dumfries And Galloway
- Parish Kirkpatrick-juxta
- Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
- Former District Annandale And Eskdale
- Former County Dumfries-shire
NY09NE 6 0652 9574.
(NY 0652 9574) Tower (NR) (Remains of)
OS 6" map, (1957)
The ruinous ground floor walls, 3' 6" thick, of a tower 30'9" by 21'6", remained at Boreland in 1912.
RCAHMS 1920
Only the vault of the tower survives. It measures 9.3m E-W by 6.5m transversely overall, and stands 3.0m high. The W end is open but two slit windows can be seen in the S wall and one in the E gable. To the E, a turf-covered stony bank may be the remains of a barmkin wall, but this cannot be ascertained without excavation.
Published survey (25") correct.
Visited by OS (R D) 30 March 1972
No change to previous field report.
Surveyed at 1:10,000.
Photos
Visited by OS (JRL) 12 September 1978
Field Visit (20 June 1990)
NY 0652 9574 NY09NE 6
All that remains of this 16th-century tower-house is its vaulted ground floor, now open on the W and in use as a shed. It measures 9.1m from W to E by 6.3m transversely over lime-mortared random rubble walls up to 1.1m in thickness. Details include traces of a mortar render on the soffit of the vault; two splayed window-openings in the S wall (with crudely-dressed sandstone jambs and lintels) and a remodelled, splayed high-level window (with timber lintel) in the E wall. The exterior angles of the tower were chamfered. A bank (up to 7m thick and 1m in height) extends from the SE angle to the edge of the escarpment and drops downslope towards the river, to leave an area, which probably served as a barmkin, on the NE side of the tower. The precise relationship, however, between this bank and the tower is unclear. The area was subsequently modified and a scarp and wall-footings both to the N and E of the tower, coterminous with a third scarp up to 2m high at the head of the escarpment on the NNE, suggests the presence latterly of a barmkin measuring 26.9m from W to E by 20.4m transversely overall.
Visited by RCAHMS (IMS), 20 June 1990.
(RCAHMS 1920).
Boreland Tower. Listed as tower.
RCAHMS 1997.