roxburgh-1956-vol-2/-05_063

Transcription

No. 570 -- MELROSE PARISH -- No. 571

called ' Chapell wallis or Chieldliellis chapell wallis '."
The place-name given here is significant, as, in the
same document reference is made to " Liells Croce "
near by. The suffix is thus clearly a personal name.
Moreover, the lands of Lyolfstun or Lyleston, which
were situated a little to the N. of Lauder, come on
record in 1232-3 in a charter confirming a grant made
a generation earlier.1 Whatever may be the signific-
ance of the place-name, it does not mean " Holy
Child ".
535451 -- N ii. -- 15 June 1933, 8 May 1947.

570. Hillslap Tower. This is the most complete
of the three towers on Allan Water (cf. also Nos. 571
and 572) and, since it is quite unaltered and can be
accurately dated, it forms a valuable guide to the
chronology of more ruinous structures elsewhere.
The masonry is rubble with freestone dressings, the
dressings of some windows and doors having mould-
ings unusual in Scotland, while the lintels of many
of the external openings have Tudor hood-moulds-
facts which suggest that the master-mason came from
across the Border. But the tower also possesses
certain local characteristics, which form a distinctive
type of elevation ; for example, the gables are not
crow-stepped but skewed, the wall-head has never
had a parapet, the roofs were not continuous. The
fess checky enrichment of the chimney copes, the
pilastered treatment of one of the windows and the
multi-membered corbel of the turret staircase are,
however, found throughout Scotland. A plan is
given in Fig. 398 and illustrations in Figs. 56 and
205.
On plan the building is L-shaped, the re-entrant
angle opening to the N. The main block to the SE.,
measuring 30 ft. by 22

[illustration inserted]
Fig. 398. Hillslap Tower
(No. 570).

ft., has four storeys, the
uppermost one being
an attic, while the wing
to the NW., which is
the highest part of
the building, contains
the main staircase with
three storeys above and
measures 16 ft. by 11
ft. 6 ins. Within the
re-entrant angle there
is a turret staircase,
advanced on a squinch
arch or trompe to obtain
the necessary room
without encroaching
upon the wing inter-
nally. Immediately be-
low is the entrance set
in the E. wall of the
wing and protected by a gun-loop in the adjoining
wall of the main block. Its lintel, which has a hood-
mould at the top, bears the date 1585 flanked by two
sets of initials, N C for Nicolas Cairncross and E L
for his wife. Below the hood-mould there is a rebate
for an outer door. The door opens at the foot of the
main staircase, now ruinous but evidently of geo-
metric and not of scale-and-platt type. On the left,
or S., side of the stair-foot a door leads into the
vaulted undercroft of the main block, now partly
filled with debris where the vault has collapsed.
This undercroft was a storehouse lit mainly from
the NW. but having also a narrow slit to the SE.
Below the breast of the NW. light, which is now
ruinous, there seems to have been a gun-loop. Three
separate gun-loops, still entire, open respectively to
the NW., NE., and SE. Beside the entrance there
is a large cupboard.
At first-floor level the main stair terminates in a
landing, off which one door opens into the turret-
stair and another leads through into the main block.
There was originally a wooden partition on the NW.
side of the landing shutting off a small closet-which
may, indeed, have been a close garderobe-contrived
above the lower turn of the main stair and entered
from the main block. The first floor of the main
block is a single room. Its fireplace, moulded on
jamb and lintel, is centred in the SE. wall between
two windows, each of the gables as well as the NW.
wall also containing a window. This room was,
therefore, unusually well lit. At is W. corner, beside
the entrance to the closet, there is a small aumbry.
To reach the upper floors it is necessary to return
to the landing and ascend the turret-stair, which, like
the main stair, has no newel. The first room to be
reached lies immediately above the main stair. This
occupies the full extent of the wing, has a fireplace
and close garderobe to the SE., and is lit from NW.
and SW. Next comes the second floor of the main
block, which has evidently been divided into two
rooms each having a fireplace and window in its
gable as well as a window facing SE. At the N. corner
of the E. division there is a garderobe. The middle
chamber of the wing, higher up than the foregoing,
has a fireplace to the SE. and windows to NW. and
SW. The third floor of the main block is the next
level reached, and here there may have been two
rooms as below or one only, either arrangement
being possible. This storey is lit by five windows,
three of them dormers, and is not provided with a
fireplace. The top room of the wing is the highest
chamber in the house. It has a fireplace to the NW.
with a corbelled lintel, the corbels as well as the
jambs being moulded. It has had a window to
NW. and SW., the latter evidently a dormer.
This property was also known as Calfhill ; " Nic.
Carnecors de Calfhill " appearing as a witness to a
charter in 1586.2
513393 -- N iv. -- 15 June 1933.

571. Langshaw Tower. This ruin is situated
on the left bank of Allan Water a quarter of a mile

1 Melrose Regality Records, S.H.S., iii, 283 n.
2 R.M.S., 1580-1593, No. 1016.

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Douglas Montgomery

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