IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Aberdon Court, ABERDEEN, AB24 2FF

This old was formerly known as Benholm's Lodging and stood in Netherkirkgate, Aberdeen, in the 1700s. The figure was added in the 1800s, the house was renamed Well House, and this led to the current name, Wallace Tower. The figure is not of William Wallace, as is sometimes written. The house was resited in Seaton Park, Old Aberdeen in 1964. It remains like a small castle, Z-shape in plan, three storey high, with round towers on two sides. Unfortunately no longer residential, the tower house is boarded up.

...more correctly known as Benholm's Lodge is a fine tower house built ca. 1610 and relocated stone-by-stone from its original location in the city centre to make way for a Marks and Spencer store. The building is now sadly boarded up but there are plans to refurbish it as a community hub. For more, see Canmore record 20178: https://canmore.org.uk/site/20178/aberdeen-benholms-lodge .

Footpath entrance to Seaton Park.

Also known as Wallace's Tower, this category B listed turreted house dating from c. 1610 (LB20107) is not on its original site in Netherkirkgate but was re-erected here in 1964. See also Image

Baronial building originally known as Benholm Lodgings built in the early 1600s for Sir Robert Keith of Benholm. Later was reused as a pub or Well-House from which the corruption Wallace comes from. The statue on the side of the tower is sometimes said to be the Scottish hero William Wallace due to misunderstanding the origin of the name, but this is not correct. The building originally stood in Aberdeen the Netherkirkgate in the city centre before being rebuilt in Tillydrone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberdeen

In the Wallace Tower, Aberdeen has it’s very own castle, a fact unknown by most Aberdonians I suspect. Even less known is the fact that it didn’t always stand where it is now, beside the River Don in the less than totally salubrious surroundings of Tillydrone (my apologies to any offended Tillydronians!). 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! This photo shows it after it was moved, tomorrow's will show it before. 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.

At Tillydrone.

Riverside path along the River Don.