Merchiston Tower
| Merchiston Castle | ||
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 Merchiston Castle |
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| Creation time : | Around 1454 | |
| Castle type : | L-plan Niederungsburg | |
| Conservation status: | Receive | |
| Standing position : | Gentry | |
| Geographical location | 55 ° 56 ′ 0 ″ N , 3 ° 12 ′ 50 ″ W | |
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Merchiston Castle or Merchiston Tower was likely built by Alexander Napier , the second Laird of Merchiston , around 1454. It serves as the seat of the Napier clan . It is known as the residence of John Napier, the eighth Laird of Merchiston , who was born here in 1550.
history
The land surrounding the castle was acquired in 1438 by Alexander Napier, the first Laird of Merchiston, and remained in the hands of the Napier family for much of the next five hundred years .
Merchiston Castle was likely built as a country house, but its strategic position and the turbulent political situation required the castle to be heavily fortified - with some six meter thick walls - on which it was often under siege. During restoration in the 1960s, a 26-pound cannonball was found in the tower's masonry, probably dating from the 1572 war between Mary Queen of Scots and supporters of her son, James VI. , come.
In 1659 the tower was sold to Ninian Lowis, in whose family it remained until 1729 when it was handed over to the governors of George Watson 's Hospital. The tower was bought back from the Napier of Merchiston family by Francis Napier, 6th Lord Napier in 1752.
In 1772, a year before the sixth lord's death, the tower was sold to a relative, Charles Hope-Weir , the second son of John Hope, 2nd Earl of Hopetoun . Weir sold the tower to Robert Turner, a judge, in 1775, who in 1785 sold it to Robert Blair , a professor of astronomy at Edinburgh University .
The Napier family returned to Merchiston Castle in 1818 when it was bought by William Napier, 9th Lord Napier .
In 1833, Lord Napier gave the tower to Charles Chalmers, who founded the Merchiston Castle School . Merchiston Castle was sold to the school in 1914 by John Scott Napier, the 14th Laird of Merchiston. The school vacated the building in 1930 when it moved to a location three miles away.
The property was first sold to The Merchant Company in 1930, to Edinburgh City Council in 1935, and remained uninhabited until 1956 when it was proposed as the centerpiece of a new technical college. The restoration began in 1958, in the course of which a drawbridge was discovered and a plastered ceiling from the 17th century was preserved.
It's now in the center of Napier University's Merchiston campus .
construction
The tower is an interesting and elaborate example of the medieval residential tower , built on the basis of the L-plan , with a wing protruding to the north. The ceilings on the second floor and under the roof were originally vaulted. One of the noteworthy details is the unusual design of the main entrance on the second floor of the south front. The high, shallow depression in which the door arch is located undoubtedly served in the past to accommodate a drawbridge, which, when folded down, must have laid on an outer structure about 4.3 m above the ground and about 3 m from the tower.
Napier University has removed parts of the wall from the north wing to accommodate a corridor that leads through the castle to other campus buildings.
Web links
- Entry in the Gazetteer for Scotland (English)
- An informative brochure about Merchiston Castle (English)
- Official website of Napier clan (English)