Garrion Tower

Garrion Tower is an early 17th-century tower house with substantial late 19th-century enlargement. The building comprises a 2-storey rectangular-plan L-shaped tower to the left with 2 Victorian additions to the right, arranged in a 6-bay composition. It has an exposed basement to the rear, a large central stair turret, and crowstepped gables. The walls are constructed in yellow ashlar sandstone, partially harled, with roll-moulded ashlar margins to all openings.

The principal south elevation features stone steps at the centre left with a splayed balustrade, leading to an advanced gabled entrance porch with an arrow slit to the apex. A harled turret rises behind. To the right of the entrance is a west-facing window to the 2nd storey beneath a continuous stugged hoodmould with Lombard frieze entablature and dentilled cornice. The turret has a conical roof with fish-scale slates, a lead finial cap, and a weathervane to the apex. A slightly advanced harled gabled bay stands to the right, with stone steps down to a basement entrance with a pointed arch door. This bay contains a single window to each of the ground and 1st floors, an arrow slit to the apex, and a gablehead chimney. Further right is a bay with paired narrow windows to the ground floor and a single window to the 1st storey. The outermost right bay, also slightly advanced and gabled, has single windows to the 1st and 2nd storeys, an arrow slit to the apex, and a gablehead chimney. To the left of centre, a single window appears at 1st floor level, with a recessed bay beyond containing a ground floor window and a bipartite window to the 1st floor. The original tower house forms a narrow, harled gabled bay at the outer left, featuring arrow slits to the ground and 1st storeys and a small square window to the apex. A recessed gablet behind contains a small window to the apex.

The rear north elevation has a slightly advanced gabled bay at the centre with a small basement window, advanced tripartite windows to ground and 1st storeys with stone mullions, and a stone raked roof. Narrow fenestrated flanking bays flank this composition. A slightly advanced harled gabled bay at the outer left contains two windows to the ground floor, a window to the 1st floor, and a small window to the apex. The original 2-bay tower house at the outer right displays regular fenestration with gables breaking the eaves.

The east side elevation is harled, with a small window to the 1st floor right, a window to the 2nd floor right, and a tall, broad, battered wallhead chimney stack at the centre. The west side elevation is also harled and gabled, with a gabled wing to the right, a gabled porch at the centre containing paired narrow windows and an arrow slit at the apex, and an entrance to the left return. A small corbelled turret stands at the centre.

The windows throughout are timber sash and case of various sizes. The roof is covered in grey slates with lead flashing and cast-iron rainwater goods. Chimney stacks have cavetto-moulded coping with coped, beak skewputts.

The interior was not inspected as of 2000.

Garrion Tower served as the pre-Reformation summer residence of the Bishops of Glasgow and Galloway. The original 17th-century tower house, positioned at the far left, was substantially expanded in two phases during the late 19th century, approximately trebling its original size. Remnants around the grounds indicate this was once an estate of considerable wealth, with a large steadings and stables complex, landscaping features, and tennis courts, though these are now substantially decayed. The house itself, though still inhabited, shows signs of considerable disrepair.