Tower O' Ess

Tower O' Ess is a folly tower likely designed by George Truefitt in the late 19th century. It stands three storeys high with a basement and has a single bay and a square plan. The tower is constructed from ladder-snecked pink and grey granite above a dark grey granite ground floor, featuring rough-faced long and short dressings that are finely finished at the margins. It has a battered base course, projecting cills, and a corbelled, flat-coped parapet.

The west elevation, which serves as the entrance, is asymmetrical. It has a small-pane, glazed timber door to the right on the ground floor, flanked by a window on the left. The first and second floors are blank. The north elevation was not observed in 1998. The east elevation is also asymmetrical, with regular fenestration slightly off-centre to the left on the basement, ground, and first floors. There are narrow vertical windows off-centre to the right between the first and second floors, while the second floor remains blank. A circular angle turret is located at the southeast corner of the parapet, featuring a narrow vertical window and a modern roof. The south elevation is asymmetrical as well, with a window off-centre to the right on the ground floor and a narrow vertical window off-centre to the left between the ground and first floors. The first floor is blank, and there is a window in the centre of the second floor.

The tower has modern timber casement windows with top hoppers, a flat lead roof with wooden duck boards, and a grey painted fibreglass roof on the turret. There is a wallhead stack to the north with circular cans and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior was not seen in 1998. Surrounding the tower are gatepiers and boundary walls made of rough-faced polychrome granite with rough-faced coping to the north and west. There are steps leading to a bowed lookout to the northeast. Two square-plan, rough-faced, polychrome granite gatepiers are located to the west, each corniced with pyramidal caps. They feature circular inset panels with tooled designs of a thistle, shamrock, rose, and the monogram WCB (William Cunliffe Brooks). The gatepier at the far west is set in a granite-coped wall, with a tooled panel to the north reading "BRIDGE O'ESS miles to Bridge of ABOYNE 1?, DINNET 3?, BALLATER 9?".