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Summary

Description

Dated 1585 for Nicol Cairncross; restored 1978-97 as family residence with later additions by Philip Mercer (see Notes). 4-storey and attic, L-plan gabled tower house with 5-storey wing with extruded turret to spiral stair at re-entrant angle. Whinstone rubble with red and buff sandstone dressings. Variety of bolection, cavetto and roll moulded openings; rounded arrises, lintels and rybats. Coped skews with shouldered skewputts.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: Tudor label mouldings to entrance at re-entrant angle; doorway lintel dated with initials of Nicol Cairncross and his wife, Elizabeth Lauder; squinch-arch above supports corbelled out stair; single pilaster-framed surround to window to left, bolection moulded window to right. 2 gun-loops to ground floor, one square-cut, one oval. Renewed dormers with Caincross arms and Mercer Crest.

Rubble 'barmkin' and 2-storey, round-arched gatehouse addition with kitchen at 1st floor adjoins to NW forming courtyard. Red sandstone dressings. Belvedered ventilator with S facing clock to ridge. Circular, squat, candle-snuffer capped outshot to NW angle. Stone forestair to S elevation leading to kitchen. Mercer crest above roll-moulded, keystoned arch.

Predominantly lead-framed glass panes set in original glazing grooves. Coped dentilled stacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: entrance in re-entrant angle rebated for inner and outer doors. Barrel-vaulted storeroom. Large corbel-lintelled fireplace to 1st floor hall; small chapel room off. Further corbelled fireplaces elsewhere, one with shafted jambs to upper floor. Full height stone spiral stair mostly renewed, replicating the fragmentary winding newel that survived to ground floor.

Statement of Special Interest

Hillslap is a fine example of a restored 16th century tower-house in the Scottish Borders. The main body of the tower retains a significant degree of its early fabric. Window mouldings, gun-loops, fireplaces and barrel-vaulted storeroom to ground all add to its architectural and historic interest. The late 20th and early 21st century gatehouse additions make use of comparable stone materials, complementing the restored tower.

Hillslap is one of three 16th century towers sited in close proximity on Allen Water in the Glendearg area of Melrose Parish (the others being Colmslie and Langshaw, both Scheduled Monuments). Hillslap has a number of parallels with the neighbouring contemporary Buckholm Tower of 1582 (see separate listing) including the unusual absence of freestone quoins despite the wide use of sandstone dressings elsewhere, and the partitioned barrel-vaulted store-room to ground, suggesting the hand of the same mason in the design of both buildings.

The main body of the tower was carefully restored from a former shell between the years of 1978 and 1995 by the owner/architect, Philip Mercer for use as a family residence. His 2-storey gatehouse addition incorporates the roll-moulded jambs of an earlier gateway excavated on the site in 1983-4, at which time evidence of an earlier barmkin abutting the NW wing of the tower was also uncovered. A further addition dated 2002 extends the gatehouse to the W, terminating in a circular library outshot. As part of the wider tableau, the architect has created a steep rubble-built humpbacked bridge over the reinstated pond on the approch drive to the tower, adding drama to the tower's setting

Hillslap, previously known as Calfhill, was formerly part of the Appletreeleaves estate. The tower was sketched as a roofless shell in 1821 by Sir David Erskine. Shot holes within its walls were discussed by Maxwell-Irving for the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquities in 1971.

Hillslap is referred to in Sir Walter Scott's 1867 edition of The Monastery as a 'ruinous mansion-house'. In his introduction, Scott refutes the suggestion that Hillslap, Colmslie and Langshaw towers provided the inspiration for his fictional Glendearg House in that story.

List description updated at resurvey (2010).

References

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