Alloa Tower, Clackmannanshire, Scotland
Written by Karen Bryan
Alloa Tower is one of the biggest surviving medieval Tower Houses in Scotland. In 1989 restoration work began on the Tower. The location of the Tower is somewhat incongruous as it’s flanked on one side by a rather run down council estate and on the other by a large modern supermarket. For many years the Tower was hidden from sight by a large mill which was demolished during recent regeneration. Alloa Tower has been furnished and there are many interesting painting adorning the walls. There’s a walkway around the roof of the Tower with views to the Ochil Hills and down to the Forth Estuary which are somewhat marred by industrial buildings.
Alloa Tower
Alloa Tower was built in the 1360s for the Erskine family who played a prominent part in Scottish history. Thomas Erskine was made into a lord for his part in saving King James 11 during the Gowrie Conspiracy. In the 1560s the 6th Lord of Erskine was further elevated to become the Earl of Mar. Mary Queen of Scots and her son James V1 of Scotland (later to become James 1 of the United Kingdom) spent time at Alloa Tower.The Tower was extended around 1700. After a fire in 1800 the Tower was left uninhabited.
View from Alloa Tower
The Tower has been beautifully restored but I do think that it’s immediate surroundings don’t do it justice and detract from it’s grandeur. Have you visited Alloa Tower, what’s your opinion?
Good info here. Can this be seen through a tour?
Jenny, Alloa Tower is managed by the National Trust for Scotland, you can find the Tower opening hours on the link in the post. So anyone can visit during opening hours. You can either pay on entry, or join the National Trust or use a Great British Heritage Pass.
The comment about its surroundings is an interesting one. As project manager for its restoration 1989-1996 , it would have been easy to use the excuse of its surroundings to do nothing. We also recreated the spirit of part of the original gardens around the tower and later in 2001, took the opportunity on the demolition on the mill, to firstly take the first steps to save the two listed mill buildings ( see Kilncraigs and LDN Architects) and create a new axial boulevard to link the tower to the town centre. The real irony here however is a historical one. The 6th Earl of Mar was a polymath and a well as genuine interests in architecture, gardens etc, was an early industrialist and his actions led to the start of Alloa becoming an industrial town rather than a sleepy baronial burgh. It is therefore a direct consequence of his actions, that his ancestral home utlimately had an industrial and built up environment.
Andy – congratulations for a great restoration. You have to be realistic and appreciate that although a historic buidling is not is what we perceive as the :”right” setting”, industry creates wealth, most of do our shopping at supermarkets and people need homes in which to live