As well as finding yourself under fire from ground and first floor level, you might find shots coming at you from the top storey of the tower as well. Many towers had Corner Turrets, so placed as to allow gunfire to be aimed from “shot holes” which covered strategic areas such as the door.

Corner turret at Traquair

Close-up of shot hole.

So, you and your band of trusty reivers have managed to survive shot and shell and have made it to the door, the only door, into the tower. Some towers would now present you with a difficult problem. Like the Bastle, the entrance is not on ground level, but 4m (12 feet) up in the air, at first floor level.

Buittle was one of these towers. The yellow box in the photo at left shows the outline of the position of the original door. The orange line marks the position of the forestair.

This is the recreated forestair at Threave Castle

If you have ever visited the Tower of London, then you would have entered the White Tower up a forestair.

If the occupants of the tower have had wind of you coming then they will have collapsed the forestair and you will be standing, amid a pile of wood,  looking up at the door.

Depending upon the tower you are at something might hit you while you are standing looking up at the door....and I don’t mean a good idea.

Some tower have machicolations (pronounced mashikolayshins) up on the roof. Not a species of pigeon, but yet another defensive measure. The textbook definition of machicolations is “an opening between corbels through which missiles of hot liquids can be dropped on an enemy below.

I feel an explanatory diagram is called for.

In basic terms the wall is built out on sticky-out bits of stone - corbels.

This leaves a space - the machicolation - through which you can drop things on the people below.

These are the machicolations at the top of Hexham Gaol

What they look like from the receiving end