Abernethy Round Tower

Abernethy Round Tower stands in the heart of its village, one of only two free-standing round towers in Scotland — the other being at Brechin Cathedral. Built in the Irish style, it rises some 22.5 metres of sandstone, its lowest twelve courses laid in stone of a markedly different colour from the work above, a seam that seems to mark a change of hand, or of century, in the building. Construction is thought to have begun in the eleventh century, when the site belonged to a monastic community: first the Culdees, later the Augustinian canons, whose foundation was dissolved in the mid-sixteenth century. Six wooden floors once linked by ladders have given way to an iron stair, and the tower was in time pressed into use as a lookout, gaining windows and, in 1868, an external clock. At its foot a Pictish symbol stone is set into the wall, and an iron joug — the neck-shackle of old parish justice — still hangs by the door. Today the tower is a scheduled monument in the guardianship of Historic Environment Scotland, and in summer visitors may climb to the viewing platform at its top.