On the edge of Edinburgh stands a wonderful stone tower. A first glimpse of its crenellated parapet over the roof of a vast industrial shed was followed by a few wrong turns, but eventually The Folly Flâneuse found herself in a field with a herd of cows and a very fine folly.

The Dryden estate, not far from the famed Roslin Castle and Chapel, was for generations the seat of the Lockhart family. In July 1822 the Lockhart family were given authority, by Act of Parliament, to sell the entailed estate, but the tower is not mentioned in the newspaper advertisement of the sale. The purchaser was probably George Mercer (1772-1853) and he lived at Dryden until the mid 1840s. The estate was then bought by Archibald Trotter (1789-1868), recently retired from a career with the East India Company. In 1845 he is listed as a member of the Highland & Agricultural Society for Scotland, and in the following year his gardener won first prize for his lettuces at the Roslin Horticultural Society Show. The Folly Flâneuse tells you this simply so she can say that Archibald Trotter, who sounds like a Beatrix Potter character, had a gardener called Mr McGregor.

So under whose ownership was the tower built? The available cartographical evidence is ambiguous: an 1828 map shows Dryden House and an ‘obelisk’. At that period the term obelisk could be used to refer to any tall, slender object – so a tower could have been in existence. Alternatively, the ‘obelisk’ may have been a now-lost monument to the Battle of Roslin of 1303, when the Scottish army defeated the English. The Lockhart family had been prominent Jacobites, and later generations are said to have marked the spot of the battle. The first firm mention is in May 1852, when the surveyors working on the Ordnance Survey mapping project admired the views from the top of Mr Trotter’s tower, and ‘Dryden Tower’ duly appeared on the map published in 1854.

The tower is 3 storeys high and stairs lead up to a parapet, from which there are extensive views. It would also have functioned as an eye-catcher, a prominent object in the view from the mansion. The ground floor is an unusual demi-lune in shape, and contains rooms that were probably initially used for picnics or shelter when riding around the estate. By 1892 its origins had already been forgotten, and a rambler making enquiries amongst the locals concluded ‘why so called or what meant for could not be learned’. The Folly Flâneuse has reached a similar conclusion.

The Dryden estate had been mined on a small-scale for centuries, but in the 1930s the mansion was demolished, and its landscape largely obliterated by the extensive coal mining of the Bilston Glen Colliery. In 1947 the University of Edinburgh purchased the land to create a rural campus, and the Dryden Tower was included in the sale. It was offered the protection of a Category B listing in 1971, but continued to fall into disrepair and was a sad sight surrounded by “Keep Out’ notices.

As the images here show, there is a happy ending. In 2014-15 a major restoration was carried out under the supervision of Architect and Stone Consultant Bob Heath, a long-time collaborator with the university. Amongst countless historic buildings his impressive c.v. includes working on the pagoda at Culzean Castle, and on not one but two Wallace Monuments (Dryburgh and Stirling). The mason was Donald McIntyre, of McIntyre Masonry, who with his apprentice, Bob, replaced all of the pointing and 10 tons of decayed stone. It was Donald’s idea to add to the building’s history by installing a new stone gargoyle – and it was his skilled carving that created it. Architect and mason agreed that it was a dream project to work on – completed on time and on budget – and everyone got along, even after Donald admitted that the gargoyle was modelled on Bob the architect, particularly ‘his big mouth’.

Thanks to McIntrye Masonry for permission to use their bright images, as The Folly Flâneuse was not lucky with the weather in July 2020…

Thank you for reading. Please scroll down to the comments box below if you wish to share any thoughts on the Dryden Tower, or on follies in general. 

High above the wonderfully scenic A712 from New Galloway to Newton Stewart, in the Scottish Lowlands, stands this granite monument. After a stiff climb up the hillside the views are breathtaking in both senses: the ascent will leave you short of breath, but you will gasp in awe at the views.

The monument commemorates Alexander Murray (1775-1813), the son of a local shepherd, who ‘by his genius and industry […] raised himself to unrivalled eminence’. From childhood he was fascinated by languages, and without teacher or tutor soon mastered the classics and modern European tongues. He was ordained a priest, but philology (the study of the history of language) remained his greatest love, and apparently following the advice of that darling of Dumfriesshire, Robert Burns, he won a scholarship to attend the University of Edinburgh. His ‘intimate knowledge of the Abyssinian language’ brought him to the attention of the king in 1811, when he translated a letter to the monarch from the prime minister of Ethiopia. He was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Edinburgh in 1812, but sadly his health failed, and he died the following year.

Looking along the valley towards the spot where Murray was born.
His first memorial was in verse, when the poet William Nicholson composed ‘On the death of the Rev. Dr Murray’, celebrating his achievements:

… Twas his the depths of language to unlock,
What every tongue in every clime hath spoke.

But curiously, for one who was so lauded, it took over 20 years for a more substantial monument to his memory to be erected. In 1833 a committee was formed in Edinburgh, and an appeal for subscribers to a monument was published in the papers. A prospectus was issued with an account of Murray’s life and a lithograph of the proposed design signed ‘J. Henderson, Archt’. This was probably John Henderson (1804-1862), a protege of Lord Panmure, then in the early stages of his career.

The prospectus made it clear that the design might be ‘modified or altered’ if the requisite funds were not found. The simplified design of the obelisk, as eventually constructed in 1835, suggests that there was indeed a shortfall. The monument was erected on land owned by the Stewarts of Cairnsmore, and the inscription records James Stewart’s ‘exertions and skill’ in getting the monument built. Presumably his exertions were not as strenuous as those of the builders who carted the materials up the steep hillside.

Murray had been buried in Greyfriars churchyard in Edinburgh, but the grave was not marked and an 1867 guide to the memorials in the graveyard noted that Murray had ‘no monument’.  In 1876 a ‘committee of gentlemen’ launched a second appeal to raise funds to erect a memorial over his burial place in Edinburgh. A smaller granite obelisk now commemorates the ‘Shepherd Boy who rose to be the most Eminent Linguist and Oriental Scholar of his day’.

The appeal also raised funds and to add an inscription to the earlier hilltop obelisk:

ALEXANDER MURRAY, D.D.
MINISTER OF URR 1806 TO 1813
PROFESSOR OF LANGUAGES
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 1812-1813
BORN AT DUNKITTERICK 22ND OCTOBER 1775
DIED AT EDINBURGH 15TH APRIL 1813
REARED A SHEPHERD BOY ON THESE HILLSIDES
ERECTED BY HIS COUNTRYMEN IN 1835
MAINLY THROUGH THE EXERTIONS AND SKILL OF
JAMES STEWART ESQ. OF CAIRNSMORE
ON WHOSE PROPERTY IT STANDS

The obelisk near Newton Stewart was damaged in a gale in November 1929, and once again a subscription was raised to enable its restoration. This was completed in 1931 when a crowd of 600-700 people gathered to mark the occasion. The obelisk is now owned by the Forestry Commission and there is a small car park at the foot of the hill. It’s well worth the climb.