Rusko Castle

Rusco Tower stands on a wooded hillside about five kilometres north of Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway. Built around 1500 for Mariota Carson and her husband Robert Gordon, it is a four-storey rectangular tower house with a wall walk inside its crenellated parapet. The tower’s thick walls, up to 2.4 metres in places, contain small rooms and a turnpike stair that rises the full height of the building. Its design closely resembles that of nearby Cardoness Castle, suggesting the same builder may have constructed both. Stone water spouts shaped like cannons project from the roof, while the ground floor walls are pierced by inverted keyhole gunloops. The tower’s past is marked by conflict and imprisonment. In the 16th century it held rivals of the Gordons, including Janet Porter, an heiress forced to sign over her estate. Robert Gordon’s son James later seized the tower to prevent his mother from passing it to her new husband, Thomas Maclellan. James went on to kill Maclellan in Edinburgh while a court case was still under way. The tower passed through several owners before falling into disrepair in the 20th century. Inside, the ground floor is vaulted and divided into storerooms and guard rooms, one with a trapdoor leading to a windowless dungeon. The first floor contains the great hall, 7.8 by 5 metres, with a beamed ceiling and arched windows. A concealed door in the west window leads to a small room with an external window and a laird’s lug, a listening hole into the hall. The upper floors were originally single large rooms but have since been subdivided. The tower remains a private home, still owned by the Carson family.