PLANS for part of Scotland's new Parliament complex have been altered after the discovery of a long-forgotten tower.
The stump of the tower has been found sticking up into the roof space of Queensberry House, the five-storey, 17th century mansion on the Canongate destined to become the parliament's administration block.
Now experts at Historic Scotland are drawing up plans to recreate the original tower top, thought to have been destroyed 200 years ago.
The open-topped structure, measuring 20ft long by 10ft wide and with 2ft thick walls, will dominate the new parliament complex and become a new city landmark. It was in this mansion that the second Duke of Queensberry lived and drafted the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and England.
The tower was originally used as a viewing platform called a belvedere, from which to look out on the neighbouring Palace of Holyroodhouse.
Discovery of the huge stump looming out of the darkness in the attic space took archaeologists by surprise during an intensive study of the whole site before construction starts next spring. They researched archive records and drawings and concluded that it was the original tower built about 1680 which was hacked down when the mansion was raised by a storey and re-roofed to form barracks about 200 years ago.
In a restoration project which will have no effect on the timescale for building the overall complex, the mansion and crowning glory will be returned to their original shape.
John Lowrey, a prominent Edinburgh University architectural historian, said: ''In its heyday this was a very lavishly appointed house with fantastically elaborate gardens. The point of building the tower in the first place would have been a symbolic kind of thing. It was saying 'I am the most important person around and don't forget it'.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article