Repentance Tower

Repentance Tower stands on Trailtrow Hill above Hoddom, about six miles north-west of Annan, built in 1565 by John Maxwell, 4th Lord Herries. It was raised not as a dwelling but as a beacon and watch-tower: from its parapet, sentries scanned the West March and the Solway Firth for English raiders, ready to light a fire and ring a bell that would carry warning across the River Annan. The Trailtrow height had served this purpose long before — a 1448 border regulation already ordered a signal fire kindled here whenever an English host crossed into Scotland. Squat and nearly square, the sandstone tower rises around thirty feet to its parapet walk through three storeys, pierced with gun loops and shot holes and roofed in stone slabs. Above the entrance a carved stone bears a bird, a scroll and the word ‘REPENTANCE’ in Gothic script — apparently reused from the demolished chapel of Trailtrow, whose stone, tradition says, Maxwell had taken for nearby Hoddom Castle, with the tower demanded as recompense. Other accounts tie the name to Maxwell’s own contrition after a broken pledge. Converted to a dovecote in the eighteenth century, the tower is a scheduled monument, still privately owned and closed to visitors.