Greenknowe Tower

A neat and scenic old ruinous tower house in a pretty spot with old trees, near Gordon in the Borders in the south-east of Scotland, and associated with the Gordon, Seton and Pringle family.

Borders: About 0.5 miles west of Gordon, just north of lay-by on A6105, at Greenknowe Tower.

HES   NT 639428   OS: 74   TD3 6JL

OPEN: Currently no visitor access to building.
Web: www.historicenvironment.scot

Built for comfort as well as for defence, Greenknowe (or West Gordon) Tower is a 16th-century L-plan tower house, although it incorporates older work. It consists of a main block of four storeys and a higher wing. Three of the corners had bartizans, and the walls are pierced by gunloops. The castle is dated 1581, and there are the mongrams of James Seton and Jane Edmonstone over the entrance. The building had been extended, though these additions have been demolished.

The entrance, in the re-entrant angle, still has an iron yett. It leads to the main turnpike stair to the hall above, and into the vaulted basement which contains the kitchen with an arched fireplace. The hall has a wide decorated fireplace. The private chambers on the floors above of both the wing and main block were reached by a turnpike stair in the re-entrant angle.

‘W. Gordounn’ (now the village of Gordon) is marked on Blaeu’s map of The Merse (1654), while ’Greenknow’ is marked on Armstrong’s map of Berwickshire (1771) as a large castle in wooded policies. The OSNB (1850s) notes ‘This is the ruin of a square fortalice, having a moat round it, which was originally four storeys high; it was unroofed about 15 years ago by the tenant of Greenknowe Farm and is now permitted to fall completely into decay.’

Greenknowe passed by marriage from the Gordons to the Setons of Touch, who built the castle or rebuilt an earlier stronghold. The Fairbairns of West Gordon are on record at the end of the 16th century. In the 17th century the property was acquired by the Pringles of Stichill, and in 1649 Robert Pringle of Stichill had a ratification which mentions the tower, fortalice and manor place called Greenknow. One of the family was Walter Pringle, a noted writer and Covenanter. The Pringles held the property in 1771.

Greenknowe later passed to the Dalrymples, who occupied the tower until early in the 19th century, but the lands then went to the Fairholms and the tower was unroofed as mentioned above. There are some impressive old trees around the building, and the tower was put into the care of the State (now HES) in 1937.