Braes Tower

Braes Tower was a small square building with an associated courtyard built on south-facing slopes about 1000 metres north-east of Bewcastle, the old Roman fort later housing a castle. There are no public footpaths and the area is moorland and rough grazing. The remains of the tower are limited to foundations and earthworks, and even on LIDAR it is difficult to make sense of, although the southern ditch drops about 1.5 metres to the bottom.

There is no history associated with Braes Tower – and the name is probably not what it was called when in use. However, the location so close to Bewcastle combined with the bigger castle falling out of use early in the 16th century suggest that they are not contemporary – and that therefore the tower may in some ways have served as a military outpost of sorts. The presence of ruined bastles at Low Grains and High Grains (each rectangular buildings with a long axis of about 9 metres) close by and dating to the early 17th century may reflect replacement buildings. Having said that, although the footprint of the tower is supposedly 9 metres square, with walls a similar thickness to those of the bastle houses, I cant make that shape out in images I have been able to find, so I wonder whether this was a third contemporary bastle house on the Kirk Beck rather than a predecessor destroyed in the latter 16th century before the Union of the Crowns.