Wallace Tower (Benholm’s Tower)

Wallace Tower, Aberdeenshire
Photo © Richard Paxman, 3 July 2006

In the Wallace Tower, Aberdeen has it’s very own castle. The castle however, did not always stand where it is now, beside the River Don. It used to stand in the Nether Kirkgate, and was moved in 1964 to make way for the building of Marks & Spencer – at their expense!

It is more correctly called Benholm’s Tower, the reference to Wallace possibly being based on the figure of an unidentified knight in an exterior recess of one of the round towers, but more probably being a corruption of “well-house”, a reference to the well that formerly stood at the head of Carnegie’s Brae nearby.

This small Z-plan castle was built as a townhouse by Sir Robert Keith of Benholm around 1600, and stood at that time in virtually open countryside, some 20 yards outside the medieval burgh boundary. Over the centuries, it passed through the hands of a succession of owners before becoming the property of the City of Aberdeen in 1918. The building looks better from a distance these days, because the original dressed stone around the doors and lintels were replaced with what looks like concrete when the building was moved.