Elshieshields Tower

Elshieshields Tower is a 16th-century L-plan tower house with an altered early 18th-century five-bay house attached to the west gable. The two buildings connect at the upper floors. The tower is harled (rough cast) and the house is rendered, both finished with red ashlar dressings and slate roofs.

The tower likely dates to 1567, possibly incorporating a rectangular tower from 1420. It has three storeys and an attic. A jamb, or projecting section, extends two storeys higher at the east end of the north wall. A stair turret is corbelled from near the main eaves level in the re-entrant angle and has a conical roof. There are bartizans (turrets) with conical roofs over the three remaining angles. Some openings are roll-moulded (with a rounded profile), and the gables are crow-stepped (where each layer of stonework projects slightly). A doorway is in the re-entrant angle of the jamb, with a panel recess above. A wheel stair (a spiral staircase) fills the lower storeys of the jamb, with small chambers on the upper floors. Rope and billet mouldings (decorative carving resembling ropes and billets of wood) are present, and a corbelled beacon platform sits over the south gable with a finial over the north gable. The tower has a vaulted basement, and there is evidence of a possible original door at first-floor level on the east gable, with a panel recess above. The elevations have asymmetrically arranged openings, and there’s a single wallhead dormer (a window in the gable) on the south side. Coped end stacks (brick or stone chimney stacks) are present, with the west stack rebuilt to incorporate flues for the later addition. A cusped-headed aumbry (a niche or cupboard) is on the north wall.

The house was originally two storeys with five regular and well-proportioned bays. It underwent alterations largely in the late 19th century, being raised a storey, with crow-stepped gables and pedimented dormer heads above eaves level. Canted ground floor windows were added, and a porch, likely from the mid-19th century, was constructed. A gabled rear (north) stair turret is also present. A second porch, to the north, with a Tudor-arched doorway, dates from the earlier or mid-19th century. Most windows are sash windows; the upper south-facing windows have a 12-pane glazing pattern. Some good 18th-century panelling remains in the ground floor rooms. A low, recessed west wing, of a T-plan, was added in the 19th century, and features a three-bay south elevation constructed of red sandstone.

A walled garden lies to the south of the house, enclosed by ashlar-coped rubble-built walls linked to the tower at the east and to the low wing at the west. There are panelled and corniced square gatepiers to the south, with curved quadrants and cast-iron gates with spiked rails, all from the earlier 19th century. A detached coach house range to the north is not included in the listing. A rear door is shown as a window in a photograph within the historic inventory.