Drumlanrig's Tower
- Not to be confused with Drumlanrig Castle
| Drumlanrig's Tower | |
|
Roxburghshire | |
|---|---|
 Drumlanrig's Tower | |
| Type: | Tower house |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NT502144 |
| Location: | 55°25’17"N, 2°47’16"W |
| Town: | Hawick |
| History | |
| Built Poss 1550s | |
| Information | |
Drumlanrig's Tower, otherwise known as 'Drumlanrig Tower', is the oldest building in Hawick, Roxburghshire. It has a vaulted room to the rear which is in active use, dating from the 1550s, and the tower itself is believed to have been built at about that time. However it stands on an earlier site, built within a ditch dated to the 12th or 13th century.[1]
The tower was built by the Douglas family in the unquiet ages of the borders, originally as an L-shaped keep similar in plan to the nearby Smailholm Tower. It is over three storeys, and with a basement. Its original purpose is in no doubt: at least two splayed gun-loops guarded the entrance in the re-entrant angle.[1]
Today it is largely hidden, as a building within a building, in the heart of the town.
History
After victory at the Battle of Flodden in 1514, the Earl of Surrey ravaged Roxburghshire, and local legend tells that he captured Hawick and having the town burnt to the ground, leaving only the tower standing. Architecture tells us that the tower of today is more recent, but this may have been a predecessor. Bain tells that the burning of Hawick was in 1570, part of the English intervention in the Marian civil war: he states that when the English entered Hawick in 1570, the inhabitants unthatched their houses, burnt the thatch in the streets and fled under cover of the smoke, which impeded the invaders. Nevertheless, the whole town was burnt, "saving a castle called Davlamoryke".[2] After the conflagration, in whichever year, few buildings remained standing, among them Drumlanrig's Tower, its walls charred black, from which it gained a nickname: 'the Black Tower'.
The Scotts of Buccleuch captured the Tower from their rivals, the Douglas family, in the 1570s.
In 1650, after Oliver Cromwell’s victory at the Battle of Dunbar, his cavalry was quartered in the tower. In 1679, after the Restoration and during the grim 'Killing Times', Covenanters attacked the Tower and stole its weapons cache.
In 1701-1702 in peacetime the Duchess of Buccleuch, Anne Scott, extended and altered the tower to become a comfortable town house, introducing the distinctive archways and expanding the building over the former courtyard. Stables were added to the rear and over 10,000 slates were used to construct the new roof.
In 1769, Drumlanrig's Tower was renovated to become a coaching inn, until the railway to Edinburgh opened in 1849 and took the trade away, after which the inn became a hotel, 'The Tower Hotel', which closed in 1981.[3]
In the 1990s the tower reopened as a museum and houses also the Borders Textile Towerhouse.
Nearby is Hawick Motte. Sixteen miles to the south is Hermitage Castle, which was also in tuirn held by the Douglases and the Scotts of Buccleuch.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Drumlanrig's Tower on CastleUK
- ↑ Bain, J (1887)
- ↑ The Hawick Paper – Drumlanrig's Tower]
