Byres

Byres farm is situated at the bottom of Byres Hill north of Haddington. It is a working farm down a private road, and there are no public rights of way across the farmyard. To the eastern end of the farm buildings is a squarish walled enclosure within which is a small rectangular tower which has been referred to as Byres Castle – although it does not fit this description at all. It has a vaulted basement and slit windows, and had a fireplace on the first floor – with entrances at ground floor and first floor level.

Byres was held by the Lindsay family from the 14th century and was the seat of the Lords of the Byres. It is clear that at one point there was a castle her – but there is not a vestige of it to see, the tower most likely being a small folly erected from masonry salvaged from the ruined castle when it was being demolished and the site cleared. It is likely there was a tower here from the mid 15th century, when this branch of the Lindsay family were ennobled as Lords of Parliament, and was much extended and altered through their tenure up to the early 17th century. At that time, the estate was sold to one of the advocates of King James VI, Thomas Hamilton, who went on to become the Earl of Haddington. A later Lord Haddington was forced to sell the estate because of financial troubles, and the new owners, the Earls of Hopetoun, do not appear to have valued the place other than for its revenue, and by 1773 the castle was in ruins. The site was cleared by the time of the first Ordnance Survey in the 1850s, and this tower appears on the earliest OS map within the walled enclosure, which is itself a complex structure of several build phases.

Access to the tower is not generally permitted due to the land being used for livestock.

HES Canmore database entry