Allanmouth Tower

NT41SE 14 45579 10244.

(NT 4558 1024) Allanmouth Tower (NR) (remains of)

OS 6" map (1970)

Allanmouth Tower, now reduced to its lowest storey, stands on top of the high left bank of the Allan Water, some 450 yds above its junction with the Teviot. It has been oblong on plan, measuring 24 ft 9 ins N-S by 31 ft transversely over walls 4 ft 6 ins thick. Its maximum height, at the SW corner, is 9 ft 9 ins, but the E and W gables have been almost entirely demolished; the side walls, however, are sufficiently entire to carry the vault covering the ground floor. The building is of rubble and posseses no features of interest.

RCAHMS 1956, visited 1931; E Barton 1940

The tower is enclosed by a semicircular bank and ditch, the ends of which rest on the edge of the ravine. The greater part of this earthwork, which may well be con- temporary with the tower, has been much reduced by cultivation; but in a plantation on the N side the ditch is 15 ft wide by 2 ft deep, while the bank is 20 ft thick and stands to a height of 7 ft above the ditch bottom.

Dated by the RCAHM to the later 16th century, the tower could have been built during Adam Scott's tenancy of Broadhaugh, around 1560, or at any time thereafter until 1600. Perhaps a most likely date would be about 1590, when the first record of 'Allanmouth' appears. After only a short period of occupation the tower was abandoned, and with time and the removal of useful stones it fell rapidly to ruin, until, by the end of the 18th century, not much more remained of it than what can be seen today.

M Robson 1977

Photographed by the RCAHM in 1980.

The remains of Allanmouth Tower, and the associated earthworks, are as described by the RCAHM.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (JTT) 18 February 1965