Coxton Tower

There is a simple chamfered doorway at ground level in the south wall, giving access to the sunken ground floor store room. The main entrance, also in the south wall, is on the first floor;[3] this is currently reached via a stairway added around 1846, but would originally have been reached using a ladder.[1] Above this entrance is an armorial panel, with the initials of Alexander Innes, who built the tower, and of Robert Innes of Invermarkie, his feudal superior.[4] Also mentioned are Janet Reid, Alexander Innes's first wife, and Kate Gordon, his second.[1] There would originally have been a courtyard and barmkin attached to the building, but no traces of these survive.[1]

The tower's walls, which are up to 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) thick,[4] are rubble-built and harled with ashlar detailing, and there are gun loops in the north, west, and east walls on the ground floor.[3] Additional gun holes are to be found in the corbelled bartizans on the south-east and north-west corners, which have conical rooves, and on the open, crennalated bartizan on the south west corner.[3] No timber is used in the fabric of the building, and even the roof is made of stone; it is believed that this is a design element intended to help it withstand fire as well as external attack.[1][2] The roof is steeply pitched, with stepped gables at the east and west ends; there are chimney stacks at the apex of each gable, and a tall chimney, largely rebuilt in the mid-nineteenth century, in the middle of the south wall.[1]

Each storey of the tower is a single room, with a stone vaulted ceiling. The orientation of the vaulting alternates between north-south and east-west on each storey, in a rare arrangement that helps to counteract the lateral thrust of the vaulting in the levels above and below each storey.[1] The ground floor, which is somewhat below ground level, served as a store room, and provided protection for cattle when necessary; a hatch in the vaulted roof communicates with the hall above, and would have provided a means of passing goods between the store room and the living accommodation.[1]

The first floor, which was protected from intruders by a surviving iron yett, served as a small hall. It features a fireplace that was installed around 1820, an aumbry and a window with a panel displaying the arms of Sir Alexander Innes and Mary Mackenzie, his second wife, believed to date from after 1647 (when Maria Gordon, his first wife, died).[3] A staircase in the north east corner, built into the thickness of the wall, leads to the upper floors. The second floor has two recessed windows, one in the western wall next to a square aumbry, and one in the southern wall which incorporates another gun-loop. The third floor has a tall vaulted ceiling supporting the stone roof above it, and rectangular entrances to the bartizans, which each feature further gun-loops.[1]