Colmslie Tower Melrose, Scotland

Text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

The monument comprises the remains of a tower house of 16th century date, situated at the E end of the steading of Colmslie Farm, some 200m NE of Waterside House, 250m from Hillslaps Tower and about 400m WSW of Langshaw Tower.

The lands of Colmslie were owned by Melrose Abbey, and before the Reformation they were tenanted by the Cairncross family; William Carncros de Cowmislie is mentioned in a charter of 1536.

The monument comprises the remains of a tower measuring some 12.9m E-W by about 8.4m N-S. It is built of roughly coursed rubble, with freestone quoins. The few surviving windows also have freestone dressings, heavily chamfered. No entrances are visible in the lowest floor; the entrance must have been in the floor above, facing N, although its position cannot be identified precisely as the N wall of the tower has been breached.

The first floor appears to have been divided into two rooms, the E one being the kitchen with a fireplace in the gable with a sink at the back and an oven in the N jamb. The kitchen had a single window to the S, the E jamb containing an aumbry. In its NE corner rose a turnpike stair serving the upper floors. The W chamber served as a living chamber with 2 windows facing S and a fireplace in the W gable.

This arrangement of dividing the first floor into a kitchen and hall can be seen at several other Scottish tower houses dating from the 15th to mid 16th century, in particular Newark Castle (Selkirkshire), Elphinstone (East Lothian) Colmongon (Dumfriesshire) and a group of towers along the Clyde Coast including Little Cumbrae, Skelmorlie, Fairlie, Saddell and Law.

The second floor has a single fireplace in the E gable. The side walls each have two large windows, three of which have stone seats. Between the two S windows are a mural chamber and a garderobe, the latter having a flue descending within the thickness of the S wall.

The area to be scheduled encompasses the visible remains and an area around them in which traces of associated activity may be expected to survive. It is irregular in shape with maximum dimensions of about 20m N-S by about 25m E-W as marked in red on the accompanying map.