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Stoneypath Tower

Dovecot (Period Unassigned), Tower House (Medieval)

Site Name Stoneypath Tower

Classification Dovecot (Period Unassigned), Tower House (Medieval)

Canmore ID 56401

Site Number NT57SE 11

NGR NT 59575 71347

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/56401

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council East Lothian
  • Parish Whittingehame
  • Former Region Lothian
  • Former District East Lothian
  • Former County East Lothian

Archaeology Notes

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.

Activities

Field Visit (21 May 1913)

214. Stoneypath Tower.

The ruin of this tower is situated ½ mile to the east-north-east of Garvald village on the right bank of the ravine traversed by the Papana Water 200 yards below its confluence with the Thorter Burn. The steep escarpment of the glen provides a natural defence on the north, west and south; to the east are traces of an earthen rampart some 12 feet wide at base.

The building is L-shaped on plan (fig. 177), measuring 43 feet 4 inches along the south wall and 50 feet along the east wall. The main block on the south has an external width of 31 ½ feet and the wing of some 26 ¾ feet. In the former, below the first or principal floor there is a basement with a mezzanine floor within the vaulted ceiling; between the first floor and wall head levels were apparently three storeys, the uppermost ceiled with a stone vault.

The walls are built of roughly coursed rubble with dressed corners and at ground are 9 feet in thickness. On a quoin at the south-west angle is a shield rudely incised with the arms of the Lyle family - fretty of six pieces. On the west wall of the main block there is a projection with a window to the south and a machicolated opening beneath, which could hardly have been defensive and probably was a garderobe.

The entrance was in the south wall at the first floor level, where a breach in the wall has been built up and a modern doorway inserted.

The basement of the main block contains one apartment 26 feet by 14 ½ feet, with a chamber of similar dimensions in the mezzanine floor above. Mural chambers are placed in the lateral walls and a narrow window in the east wall. The greater portion of the vaulted ceiling has fallen, filling the chamber with its debris. The wing contains at this level two chambers, but the more northerly is now inaccessible.

The Hall occupied the full extent of the first floor of the main block. It had a large fireplace in the east wall with a sink and drain on the south lighted by a small window. A window on the north has stone seats and a cupboard in the western jamb. On crossing the Hall the wheel-stair, somewhat unusually situated in the north wall of the main wing, is reached. It communicates with the basement and the upper floors. The upper floors are completely ruined. The tower dates from the 15th century and is now in an exceedingly bad state of repair.

HISTORICAL NOTE.

In 1494 ‘David Lile of Stanepeth’ was pursuing the free tenants of Duns in a case of multure to the mill of Duns, which he had feued (1). The Lisles continued there for more than a century thereafter. In 1609 George ‘Lyell’ was of ‘Stanypeth’ and had a charter of novodamus to himself, his wife Agnes Hamilton and their son and heir George, which included also their estates in Berwickshire, but this is followed, in the same year, by a resignation of the property and its transference to Alexander Hamilton of Innerwick (2). These grants include the castrum or fortalicium of Stoneypath, meaning simply the tower. Later (1616) the ,property was conferred upon Archibald Douglas of Whittingeham, when it is specified as having been part of the earldom of March (3), and in 1628 was in possession of William Douglas of ‘Stanypeth’ whose daughter married Arthur Douglas, nephew of the 8th Earl of Morton, and to this Arthur and his wife Stoneypath was conveyed with the barony of Whittinghame (4). In this way Stoneypath came ultimately to the Setons (5) from whom in time it passed by purchase.

RCAHMS 1924, visited 21 May 1913.

(1) Records of the Parliament of Scotland (1804) p. 447; (2) Reg. Mag. Sig. s.a. Nos. 73, 183; (3) Ibid. s.a. No. 1460; (4) Ibid. s.a. No. 1315; (5) cf. [RCAHMS 1924] Art. 213; R.M.S. 1668, No. 1154.

OS map ref: xi. S.W.

Photographic Survey (1956)

Photographic survey by the Scottish National Buildings Record in 1956.

Standing Building Recording (June 2001)

NT 5958 7134 A programme of building recording and trial trenching were undertaken in advance of the restoration of the tower as a private dwelling. The building is an L-plan tower house of probable 15th-century date (NMRS NT 57 SE 11). Much of the upper levels have collapsed, but the remainder of the building is relatively complete in terms of its primary design. There are only limited areas of late or secondary work: a guard chamber inserted by the remodelled entrance; a dovecote inserted in the upper levels of the N wing; areas of modern blocking or fill within doorways, windows and areas of collapse at the outer wall faces; insertion of a modern doorway in the S wall.

Most of this work post-dates the abandonment of the building and, overall, there is little evidence for any substantial remodelling during the period of its use as a house. Most of the surviving features correspond to a single, well-integrated design.

A series of hand-excavated trial trenches were executed around the exterior of the tower. These established the presence of substantial deposits of rubble around the tower, a result of 19th-century landscaping. Beneath this, evidence relating to previously unrecorded structural remains was revealed, including a flagged surface and the remains of an outer wall. A possible post-medieval ditch and original ground surface were uncovered on the N side of the tower.

(Full details lodged with the NMRS).

T Holden 2001.

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