Cramond Tower
Cramond
Tower stands on high ground overlooking the Firth of Forth, a few
hundred yards to the south-east of Cramond village on the
north-western extremity of the capital. It has as its neighbours the
15th century Cramond Church and 17th century Cramond House.
Its history is obscure. Ratcliffe Barnett writing in 1926 states,
'Over the sea wall at Nether Cramond you will see an old tower - the
only remaining fragment of the summer palace of the Bishop of
Dunkeld, and once a portion of the castle which stood near the old
Roman Camp of Caer-almond. The Bishops Palace was founded in the
twelfth century when David I granted the lands to the Bishop of
Dunkeld.' Unfortunately Mr Barnett does not cite any authority for
his statement.
In Sir James Dalrymple's Historical
Collections it is said that 'Robert Avendale, Justiciary of Lothian
in the reign of William the Lyon (who swayed the Scottish sceptre
from 1160 to 1214), and his family, did possess Karramund, and gave
that part to the Bishops of Dunkeld, called Bishops Cramond, now
possessed by Sir John Inglis Bart.' Keith in his Historical
Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops, notes that Richard de Prebenda,
second Bishop of Dunkeld died at Cramond in 1173 or 1174, and that
John de Leicester, the seventh bishop of that see, died at Cramond
in 1214.
From an indenture of excambion, however, in the
possession of Mr. Watson of Saughton, John Wood (in his book The
Antient and Modern State of the Parish of Cramond, written in 1794)
notes 'it appears that Robert de Cardeny, the then Bishop of Dunkeld,
made, in 1409, an exchange of the lands of cammo in this parish, for
the tower of Cramond, several pieces of ground within the barony of
Kirk Cramond, and divers annual rents, with John de Nudre, and
William de Nudre his son and heir.' Little is known of the Nudre (or
Niddry) family, and there would appear to be no textual evidence
extant that would show by whom or when the tower was originally
built.
Of all the Bishops of Dunkeld, the best known was
Gavin Douglas, the third son of Archibald, fifth Earl of Angus (Bell
the Cat). A confidant of Queen Margaret (James IV's widow), he was
nominated by her to the see in 1515, but was opposed by the Earl of
Atholl. Within a month, however, he was installed as Bishop, after
the intervention of the Queen's brother, Henry VIII, to the pope,
and with some help from his friends, in one letter to his friends he
writes, 'Forget not to solyst and convey well my promotion to
Dunkelden, as ye luf me, for I haf gevyn the money quhar ye bad me.'
Gavin Douglas is better remembered, however, as a poet and
translator of The Aeneid.
The later history of the tower is
rather better documented. After the Reformation, James Paton, the
first Protestant Bishop of Dunkeld, alienated the lands of Cramond
in 1574 to Archibald Douglas Kilspindle (descended from
Archibald
(Bell the Cat), Earl of Angus. Keith in his Historical Catalogue of
Scottish Bishops adds, 'for which, and, other dilapidations of his
benefice, Paton was deposed the following year, 1575.'
Archibald Douglas of Kilspindle was succeeded in the lands of
Cramond by his son Patrick, who in turn alienated them to Alexander
Douglas(1), a macer in Edinburgh in 1600,
portioner of Rathobyres. He, in 1622, sold the estate to James Inglis, a merchant in Edinburgh. Various generations
of the Inglis family followed, including Sir John Inglis, born in
1683, who (according to Wood) 'after attaining a period of life to
which very few reach, without suffering so much as one days
confinement by sickness, died at Cramond 3rd March 1771, aged 88. He
was universally esteemed and respected, and enjoyed for some years
the office of Postmaster General of Scotland. His wife, with whom he
lived no less than 63 years in a married state, was Ann daughter of
Adam Cockburn of Ormistoun, Lord Justice Clerk.'
In 1680, the
then laird, John Inglis, who obviously prospered in business despite
having been imprisoned and heavily fined as a Covenanter, for his
part in the Cramond Conventicles, moved from the old tower to a new
and more commodious house some hundred yards inland.
The
Inglis family continued possession of their Cramond estate,
including the old tower, until 1817, when Sir Patrick Inglis, Ann
Cockburn's third son, died and the estate passed to Lady Torphichen
- daughter of Sir John Inglis who had died in 1799, leaving the
estate to his younger brother Sir Patrick. After Lady Torphichen's
death, the estate passed to Susan, a descendant of another of Anne
Cockburn's children. She married Cragie and her daughter married a
Halkett, the Craigie Halketts then becoming lairds of Cramond.
Following the building of Cramond House in 1680, the old tower
stood empty for the next three hundred years, gradually becoming
completely derelict. By 1837, James Skene, the Edinburgh painter,
portrayed it as a romantic ruin, and so it stayed until the 1970's.
The only practical use to which the tower was ever put during these
three hundred years of neglect, was to house a gas plant for
lighting the 'Big Hoose' during the Great War.
In volume
three of the Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland by
D.MacGibbon and T.Ross 1889, it is stated that the tower is in an
unfortunate condition, being entirely crowned with ivy, which has
got such a hold of it (the branches in some places going through the
walls) as to greatly imperil its safety, while on the top, in
consequence of the roots of saplings penetrating the walls and arch,
the masonry is becoming dangerous. This is greatly to be regretted,
as the structure is somewhat unique, and might easily be preserved
from decay.'
Nothing was done, however, until the 1960's when
Edinburgh Town Council removed most of the vegetation and crowned
the barrel roof with a concrete cap. On discovering later that they
did not own the building, further restoration was abandoned and it
was again left to the ravages of time, the weather and vandalism.wer is a classic example of the medieval Scottish
defensive tower. Four storeys high, it rises over fifty feet above
the ancient raised beach, standing firmly on a solid six foot deep
stone conglomerate foundation. In plan, the tower covers an area of
approximately twenty-five feet square, while the walls are so thick
(over five feet in places) that the plan areas of the walls
surrounding each of the rooms exceeds the area of the room enclosed.
A semi-circular stair-tower protrudes at the south-east corner of
the building, within this there is a stone turnpike stair, which now
leads to the roof. Prior to restoration the stair rose only from the
ground floor to the first floor but was missing completely for the
next two levels only to reappear at the top storey. The concrete
cap, added in the 1960's, prevented access to the roof area from the
turnpike stair (It also blocked the chimneys from main hall and
second floor fireplaces). It is virtually certain that the staircase
would have been surmounted by a cap house, and this has now been
restored.
The tower would have had either a pitched roof
garret room or a battlemented roof. The former was considered to be
the more likely and so a pitched roof was added during the
restoration.
One unique feature of the tower is that the axis
of the upper barrel vault is at right angles to that of the first
floor barrel roof. Before restoration in the 1970's, all the wooden
floors had gone, leaving only a few of the original oak beams.
Under the direction of the City Archaeologist, digging was
carried out around the tower in the 1970's. A large quantity of
Roman potsherds was found including the spout portion of a Roman
mortarium, in addition to a pile of broken 17th and 18th century
wine bottles, some marked Cramond on the shoulder. The other finds
include a Charles II coin, a 19th century Russian penny, a medallion
and a few silver pins.
Externally, the tower is now very much
as it must have been in its heyday, but internally, although the
visual impact is that of a centuries old building, the present
owners enjoy a degree of comfort that would have been beyond the
imagination of any of the Bishops of Dunkeld.
The tower is now in the ownership of Eric Jamieson, and used by his
son.
1. Ie, Alexander was probably not the son of
Archibald. Alexander married a Margaret Inglis. There is a
James Douglas of
Knightsrig, and portioner of Ratho byres 18 May 1588, who could
be Alexander's father. There is a theory that Alexander went to
London in King James retinue, and was granted Reeth, in Yorkshire,
as a reward for his service. However,
Alexander Douglas, of Reeth,
is recorded as having married Maraduke Langdale's daughter.
See also:
• Cramond Regis
• Plan of Cammo,
Cramond Regis and Lennie, Edinburgh
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gratefully accepted
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