Kilnsike Tower
| Kilnsike Tower | |
|
Roxburghshire | |
|---|---|
 Kilnsike Tower | |
| Type: | Bastle house |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NT634130 |
| Location: | 55°24’34"N, 2°34’45"W |
| History | |
| Built 16th century | |
| Information | |
| Condition: | Ruined |
Kilnsike Tower is a ruined 16th century, rectangular, stone-built bastle house a mile to the east of Ruletownhead in Roxburghshire. A bastle house is a defensible farmhouse of a sort found across the Middle Shires, dating from the lawless days of the reivers.
The tower stands along in a field, away from a minor lane and at the head of a small stream called the Kiln Sike, from which it takes its name. It is built of large stones, laid in clay mortar.
It is long since unroofed, its south-east wall standing just to the height of the original first floor entrance, with the gables a little higher. The north-west wall has been completely demolished and there are no narrow slit lights visible in any of the remaining walls. Half of the basement, is now below ground level. The north-east gable end contains the entrance to the byre once attached to the house.
The house, in common with other bastle hosues of its time, would once have had a removable staircase up to the living quarters, with the ground floor given over to stores and livestock, defended behind its stout walls against the depredations of the reivers.
Three miles to the south is a similar defensive ruin, Dykeraw Tower and four miles north-west is Fulton Tower.[1]
References
- ↑ Kilnsyke Tower on CastleUK
