Scotland · 15th century
Merchiston Tower, also known as Merchiston Castle, was probably built by Alexander Napier, the 2nd Laird of Merchiston, around 1454. It serves as the seat for Clan Napier. It was the home of John Napier, the 8th Laird of Merchiston, and the inventor of logarithms, who was born there in 1550.
The tower stands at the centre of Edinburgh Napier University's Merchiston campus.
The lands surrounding the castle were acquired before 1438 by Alexander Napier (1st Laird of Merchiston), and remained in the Napier family for most of the following five centuries.
Merchiston Castle was probably built as a country house, but its strategic position and the turbulent political situation required it to be heavily fortified – with some walls as much as six feet thick – and it was frequently under siege. During restoration in the 1960s, a 26-pound cannonball was found embedded in the Tower, thought to date from the struggle in 1572 between Mary, Queen of Scots, and supporters of her son, James VI.
In 1569, William Stewart of Luthrie was accused of witchcraft and conspiracy against Regent Moray.
He was said to have held meetings in the loft or upper chamber of the Tower with Archibald Napier to conjure a spirit called "Obirion". Stewart also made an invocation to summon Obirion in the "yaird" or garden at Merchiston. In March 1584 Edinburgh town council sold Archibald Napier a piece of land to extend his garden.
In 1659, the castle was sold to Ninian Lowis, in whose family it remained until 1729, when it was sold to the governors of George Watson's Hospital (the Merchant Company of Edinburgh). The tower was reacquired by the Napier of Merchiston family when Francis Napier, 6th Lord Napier, bought it in 1752.
In 1772, a year before the sixth Lord's death, the Tower was sold to a relative, Charles Hope-Weir, second son of John Hope, 2nd Earl of Hopetoun. Weir sold it in 1775 to Robert Turner, a lawyer, who sold it in 1785 to Robert Blair, a professor of astronomy at the University of Edinburgh.
The Napier family again came into possession of Merchiston Castle in 1818, when it was purchased by William Napier, 9th Lord Napier.
In 1833, Lord Napier let the Tower to Charles Chalmers, who founded the Merchiston Castle School. It was sold outright to the school in 1914 by the Honourable John Scott Napier, fourteenth Laird of Merchiston (son of Francis Napier, 10th Lord Napier).
Text adapted from “Merchiston Tower” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Merchiston Tower ranks #7,332 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #214 of the 226 mapped in Scotland. Founded 1454, it is older than 46% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 554 atlas entries founded in the 15th century. 21 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Edinburgh, 3 km away. See how Scotland compares in the castle statistics.
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