Orchardton Tower

Orchardton Tower stands at the end of a single-track road off the A711 near Palnackie, the only free-standing round tower house of its kind in Scotland. It was built about 1455 by John Cairns, of a modest family that served the Stewart kings and backed James II against the Earl of Douglas, and was rewarded with Orchardton at a much reduced rent. Round keeps belonged to castles of the 1200s such as Bothwell and Dirleton and had gone out of fashion two centuries earlier, and nobody knows why Cairns built one; it has similarities with later towers in south-west Ireland. Inside it followed the usual plan, a cellar entered separately, a hall on the first floor with a wall cupboard and a carved stone lamp holder, private chambers above and a wall-walk at the top. Around it are the low ruins of the courtyard buildings. The tower itself is closed for structural work, but the ruins and the outside can be visited daily, with a car park at the site.