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Dryhope Tower

Tower House (Medieval)

Site Name Dryhope Tower

Classification Tower House (Medieval)

Canmore ID 51215

Site Number NT22SE 2

NGR NT 26734 24727

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/51215

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

  • Council Scottish Borders, The
  • Parish Yarrow
  • Former Region Borders
  • Former District Ettrick And Lauderdale
  • Former County Selkirkshire

Archaeology Notes

NT22SE 2 26734 23727

(NT 2673 2473) Dryhope Tower (NR) (Ruins of)

OS 6" map (1900)

Dryhope Tower. This stout little tower, which stands on shelving ground at the foot of Dryhope Rig and overlooks the steep gully of the Dryhope Burn, is fairly entire for three of its four storeys.

On plan it is oblong, measuring 22 ft 6 in from NW to SE by 33 ft 3 in from NE to SW over walls which vary in thickness from 4 ft 6 in to 5 ft. The masonry is rubble of local stone, originally harl-pointed and recently repaired, but the larger openings seem to have had freestone dressings, of which only a single fragment has survived.

A small panel of freestone, formerly above and to the right of the entrance, has been rebuilt into the SW gable of the cart-shed in the neighbouring farmyard. This panel has a cabled margin and is carved with a shallow niche, within which may be seen the date 1613 cut below two sets of initials, P S and M S for Philip and Mary Scott, parents of the 'Flower of Yarrow'. (C G Cash 1913). The date 1788 has been added above the niche-head.

There is some evidence that the tower was once closed by a barmkin wall and that within the enclosure there were outbuildings on either side of the entrance, about 30 yds. distant to the NW of the tower.

Dryhope has all the appearance of a 16th century tower. In 1592 an order was made for its destruction (Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 4, 1585-92, 769); the year 1613 may have seen it rebuilt.

RCAHMS 1957, visited 1934 and 1946

The tower and dated panel are as described by RCAHMS. There is now little or no evidence of a barmkin around the tower: the outbuildings supposedly lying within the barmkin - as mentioned by the Commission - are described in NT22SE 3 and may have no connection whatsoever

with the tower.

Visited by OS (EGC) 2 July 1962.

NT 267 247 A 2 x 2m excavation at the ground-floor entrance within the NE corner of the tower was carried out in October 2002, showing that the door was a later insertion, and beneath the collapse layer were the remains of a broken slab floor. The external elevations were also recorded.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsor: Philiphaugh Estate Trust.

D Connolly 2002

NT 26734 24727 Internal recording was carried out in September 2003 of the upper floors of the tower house during consolidation works (see DES 2002, 104). Extensive clearance above the upper vault revealed the upper chamber of the tower - a single space with broad arched recesses within the gable walls to the E and W, and a well-preserved window recess to the S. In most areas dressings had been extensively robbed, an exception being the lower parts of an entrance to a small garderobe chamber in the N wall. In situ jamb stones displayed a chamfered aris and a single mason's mark. The upper floor flooring had been wholly robbed.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsor: Philiphaugh Estate Trust.

T Addyman 2003

Activities

Note (2 November 2015)

This monument was delisted and was removed from the list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest.

The structure is still designated as a scheduled monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.

Information from Historic Environment Scotland, 2 November 2015

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