Talk:Auchenbathie Tower

Name-stone at Auchenbathie

I suppose that this piece is based on the above-door marital date-stones that record the connection between the two landholding families concerned . There’s usually a symbolic linking of the two partners’ intials. In this case the three partners’ initials are just placed in sequence. It looks as though it might record some sort of contract between them. This fits – roughly - with what I know of the development of Auchinbothy in the 17th century. In the 16th century Auchenbothie-Langmuir was divided into Easter and Wester Mains, the latter being the home farm of the tower. In 1617 the estate was divided into equal sevenths, three of them in the former Wester Mains.

The threefold division was still there in the 1695 Poll Tax Roll. The tenants were John Craig [Tour], Robert Cochrane [Tour of Auchenbathie], and James Fulltoune [Auchinbothie]. The first two may be related to two of the three sets of initials [but not identical – Craig and Cochrane had young children in 1695]. The third, Fulltoune, was an incomer. He may have replaced the family of the `NC’ incised on the stone.

Notes on the tower -

Tower of Auchenbathie Today, the ruined Tower of Auchenbathie [or Auchenbothie], tower-house a few bare walls by a moorland plantation, seems a poor NS 3980 5646 excuse for a castle. But in 1703 it was a manor place with houses, biggings [buildings], yards and orchards. Some 200 years earlier it was the centre of the Wallace estate of Auchenbathie. Described as small andancient by Semple [CS], the tower was 9m by 9m with walls less than 2m thick. It was a plain tower-house, probably consisting of a vaulted basement carrying family rooms on two or three upper floors. Pont has a 4 or 5 storey tower symbol, but one or two of these storeys may be a `politically correct' fiction, a reflection of the high status of the Semples who held the Tower at the time when Pont made his survey.

It is likely that Auchenbathie was held in inheritance by the father or mother of Wallace the Guardian. During, or after, the Wars of Independence the lands seem to have reverted to the Stewarts, probably because the Guardian's lineage failed early in the 14th century [Steel, 2007]. Some generations later, it was granted to the Wallaces of Johnstone, a cadet branch of the Wallaces of Craigie. The tower probably dates from the tenure of Auchenbathie by Wallace of Johnstone, between the late 14th century and 1532. In 1490 Wallace of Johnstone was compelled to release Auchenbathie to Ross of Hawkhead for a while, for non-payment of debt; and in 1532 the Wallaces gave up the western half of the estate, including the Wester Mains, the Tower, and its manor-place, but held on to the Easter Mains. The land was subsequently known as Auchenbathie-Langmuir, then Auchenbathie-Blair, and between these two occupations it was held by the Semples and the Earl of Glencairn. [RMS 1532, 1572, 1575, 1599, and 1610]. The Wallaces retained the Easter Maynis [CL, iv, 266; vi, 17].

Alan Steel Rosser Gruffydd 17:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)