Roughwood Tower
| Roughwood Tower | ||
|---|---|---|
 Roughwood Tower (engraving from 1823) |
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| Alternative name (s): | Ruchwood Tower | |
| Creation time : | 15th century | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg (tower castle) | |
| Conservation status: | Burgstall | |
| Standing position : | Scottish nobility | |
| Construction: | Quarry stone | |
| Place: | Beith | |
| Geographical location | 55 ° 44 '7.5 " N , 4 ° 38' 11" W | |
| Height: | 88 m ASLTemplate: height / unknown reference | |
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Roughwood Tower , also Ruchwood Tower , is an abandoned tower castle near the town of Beith in the Scottish administrative division of North Ayrshire .
The 15th century castle was a simple, fortified keep . These defense towers usually had an entrance on the ground floor, through which one reached the storage cellars on the ground floor and via a spiral staircase to the knight's hall on the first floor. The great hall generally had a large, open fireplace and window seats. The engraving shows a structure that is almost or even completely identical to that of the other tower castles, comparable e.g. B. that of Busbie Castle . The tower was inhabited until the 17th century.
The old mansion or fortified tower of Ruchwood (sic) bore the coat of arms of the Hammill family , which showed "a five-pointed star, a crescent moon , a drawbar (similar to that of the Cuninghames ) and a lily ". The colors were not visible then. This coat of arms had a small helmet on top , again a lily.
Half of the old tower was removed to make way for modern buildings, but in the half that was preserved in the 19th century there was a passage surrounded by hewn stone. The coat of arms could have been the same one that was placed inside above a small, open fireplace on the first floor in the left part of the gable. These coats of arms are said to have been heavily faded; they bore the number “14” in the lower left corner; the first and third quadrant could no longer be seen.
Individual evidence
- ^ Joan Blaeu: Cuninghamia / ex schedis: Timotheo Pont; Ioannis Blaeu excudebat. Cunningham. . National Library of Scotland. 1654. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
- ↑ James Dobie: Memoir of William Wilson of Crummock . James Dobie, Edinburgh 1896. p. 85.
