Cockburn Tower

Cockburn Tower is a small ruined castle on the south slope of Cockburn Law in the Scottish county of Berwickshire (now part of the Scottish Borders administrative division ). Little more than the foundations of the outer walls remains today of the once fortified house over Whiteadder Water . According to a report from 1980, the foundations of the former residential tower have a roughly square shape measuring 12.8 meters × 11.6 meters.

The land around Cockburn Tower belonged to the powerful Dunbar family in the early 15th century . In 1425 Sir David de Dunbar of Cockburn , brother of the unfortunate 11th and last Earl of Dunbar and March , bequeathed this land to his daughter Marjorie or Margaret on the occasion of her marriage to Alexander Lindsay, 2nd Earl of Crawford . Around 1527 William Cockburn bought this land from Alexander Lindsay, 4th Earl of Crawford . William Cockburn was the second son of Sir William Cockburn, Baron of Langton , who died in the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513 . From 1527 to 1698, Cockburn Tower was the seat of the Cockburn family of that line. But in 1696 the tower block and the surrounding land were auctioned to pay the debts of Sir James Cockburn, 1st Baronet . It seems that the residential tower was no longer inhabited after that, and by 1820 it was already a ruin without a roof, even if large parts of the walls were still standing. It is likely that much of the building blocks from Cockburn Tower were used to build the farmhouse and outbuildings of the nearby Cockburn Farm .

Individual references and comments

^ ^A ^b ^c Laurence H. Cleat: Castles of the Cockburns in History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club . No. 47. No. 2. 1997. pp. 152-159.
^ Martin Coventry: The Castles of Scotland . 2nd Edition. Goblinshead, Edinburgh 1997. ISBN 978-1-899874-10-1 .
↑ It seems very likely that members of the Cockburn family settled the land around the Cockburn Law much earlier, possibly as vassals of the Dunbars. Genealogical evidence shows that the Cockburns descended from the same Anglo-Saxon clan as the Earls of Dunbar and their 11th-century ancestors, the Earls of Northumbria .

Web links

Cockburn Tower in Canmore . Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

55.8248 -2.3688Coordinates: 55 ° 49'29.3 " N , 2 ° 22'7.7" W.

[Cleat152159-1] A ^b ^c Laurence H. Cleat: Castles of the Cockburns in History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club . No. 47. No. 2. 1997. pp. 152-159.

[Coventry-2] Martin Coventry: The Castles of Scotland . 2nd Edition. Goblinshead, Edinburgh 1997. ISBN 978-1-899874-10-1 .

[Bemerkung1-3] It seems very likely that members of the Cockburn family settled the land around the Cockburn Law much earlier, possibly as vassals of the Dunbars. Genealogical evidence shows that the Cockburns descended from the same Anglo-Saxon clan as the Earls of Dunbar and their 11th-century ancestors, the Earls of Northumbria .