Coxton Tower

The tower stands as a four‑storey, nearly square structure measuring about seven metres on a side, built of rubble and finished with an outer harled coating and ashlar stone dressings. The walls reach up to 1.4 metres in thickness and the whole building is notable for its extensive use of stone rather than timber. The steeply pitched roof is constructed of stone slabs, it rises to stepped gables at the east and west ends, and chimney stacks sit at the roof apexes.

Internally each floor is one single vaulted room, with the direction of the vaulting alternating between north–south and east–west as the storeys rise, and the top, third floor supports the stone roof with a tall vaulted ceiling. The ground floor is set below the first‑floor hall and was used for store purposes and to shelter cattle when required. A hatch in the vaulted ground‑floor ceiling communicates with the main hall above.

The principal entrance is located at first‑floor level on the south side and was originally reached by a movable ladder; an external stair added around 1846 now provides access. An armorial panel sits above this doorway and the hall behind it retains a surviving iron yett for protection. The hall contains an aumbry and a fireplace that was installed around 1820. A window on the first floor incorporates an armorial panel thought to date after 1647.

Vertical circulation continues by a stair set within the thickness of the north‑east wall, which gives access to the upper chambers. The second‑storey room has two recessed windows, one beside a square aumbry in the west wall and another in the south wall that incorporates a gun loop. The third floor provides rectangular entrances to projecting corner turrets, and those turrets contain additional gun loops.

Defensive apertures are a clear feature of the plan. There are gun loops in the north, west and east walls of the ground floor and extra firing openings in corbelled projecting turrets on the south‑east and north‑west corners; those two turrets have conical roofs. An open, crenellated projecting turret sits on the south‑west corner. A tall chimney set in the middle of the south wall was largely rebuilt in the mid‑nineteenth century.

Armorial and commemorative stonework remains built into the walls, recording members of the Innes family and their relationships, including references to Robert Innes of Invermarkie, Janet Reid and Kate Gordon, and to Sir Alexander Innes and Mary Mackenzie. The tower’s fabric survives in an unusually complete condition for an uninhabited building of its age, and conservation work in 2001 consolidated the stone roof and the exterior harling, with the masonry substantially preserved. Historical evidence also records that a courtyard and a surrounding defensive enclosure were associated with the tower in earlier periods.