The Lowis of Manor family built Castlehill Tower,[2] which is first recorded in 1555,[3] but it was subsequently sold in 1637 [3] to Alexander Veitch, who passed it, in 1672, to George Baillie of Jerviswood. From 1703 to 1729 it was owned by William, first Earl of March.[2] William Tweedie of Quarter seems to have owned it in 1838, but abandoned it two years later.[1]
Structure
Castlehill Tower, which stands on the west end of a rocky knoll on the left bank of the Manor Water,[3][1] may have had three storeys and a garret,[2] but now only parts of the ground and first floors remain.[1] It measures 37 feet eight inches by 29 feet 9 inches.[3] The basement walls are 6 or 7 feet thick.[2] The entrance, which leads to a small lobby, was in the east wall. In the lobby is the staircase to the hall on the first floor. The stair also leads to a passage with access to the barrel-vaulted hall, and also to a turnpike stair at the north-west angle of the tower. At ground level there is evidence of latrine chutes, coming from garderobes on the upper floor.[2]
There is a ditch, with an average width of 11 feet at the bottom, to the south, west and north-west. There is a bank on the counterscarp which may have continued on the north, where a road runs now, and along the steep east side. The sides of the knoll may have been scarped. There are traces of a stone wall on the north and east. The whole summit may have been enclosed.[3]
Consolidation work in 1889 did not succeed entirely in the grounds of the tower.[2]
The castle guarded a ford over the Manor Water.[1]
