The Wallace Monument, or Barnweil Tower, Ayrshire

The gruesome tale is told that William Wallace, the famed Scottish soldier, stood on Barnweil Hill, near Tarbolton in Ayrshire, and watched as the barns in which he had trapped English soldiers were set alight. He is supposed to have uttered the words ‘The barns o’Ayr burn weel’, giving the spot its name. Few people seem to have genuinely believed this story, but in 1854 the decision was taken to erect a tower on the hilltop to commemorate ‘the matchless Sir William Wallace’.

Wallace led his country’s rebellion against the English, including a great victory at Stirling Bridge in 1297. But in 1305 he was captured, pronounced guilty of treason and executed in London. He became a national hero in his homeland, and ever since has personified Scottish patriotism.

One of his greatest admirers was William Patrick of Roughwood, near Beith, a ‘patriotic Ayrshire gentleman’. He gave the funds to build the tower, which was erected on land given ‘with hearty concurrence’ by Brigadier General Smith Neil of Swinridgemoor. Superintending the building work was William Dobie, a local antiquary and poet who is credited with the design of the tower. Dobie was also responsible for the ‘greater number of the many spirited inscriptions on the monument’ (of which more in a moment).

In the first days of August 1855 preparations were being made for laying the foundation stone. The mason, Robert Snodgrass Snr, and his team must have cracked on as within three weeks the tower was already over 20 feet high. Stone slabs were set into three faces of the tower ready for the encomiastic inscriptions composed by Dobie. As there are hundreds of words on the three panels the Flâneuse does not intend to transcribe them here, but in summary they list Wallace’s great military victories and commend his leadership in throwing off the ‘yoke of foreign oppression’ and maintaining the ‘independence and nationality of Scotland’.

In 1899 the two remaining trustees of the tower handed it into the care of Ayr Town Council, along with a ‘small sum of money for maintenance’. The tower was at that date described as ‘badly out of repair’, so the funds were presumably soon depleted. Historically, there was access to the rooftop viewing platform with its magnificent panorama, but this is now limited to occasional open days.

The exterior of the tower (listed at Category A) can be seen at any reasonable time, and unlike many a hilltop tower there is a narrow road right up to it for those who don’t fancy the climb.

As a plaque on site notes, the Barnweil Tower is ‘one of a series of Wallace monuments built throughout the country in the nineteenth century’.

Among them is the national monument to Wallace, which stands in Stirling. It was first proposed in 1851, but progress was slow and the foundation stone was not laid until 1861. A funding crisis in 1863 threatened to leave the unfinished tower as ‘one of Scotland’s follies’, but the promoters did not give up, and the opening ceremony was held, at last, in 1869.

But by far the most dramatic of the memorials is the wonderful statue of Wallace high above Dryburgh Abbey in the Borders. Erected in around 1814 it stands a monumental 31 feet (9.44m) tall.

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