Located in Over or Upper Liberton, it was originally owned by the Dalmahoy family, whose arms appear on a carved panel on the south wall. Records of it being in their possession date back to 1453, but the provenance of the tower before that is not known. It passed to a branch of the Forrester family of
Corstorphine, before being sold to
William Little, who was
Provost of Edinburgh in 1586 and 1591. Provost Little built the nearby
Liberton House, and the castle was abandoned in 1610, being subsequently used for agricultural storage. Deposits of
charcoal as well as smashed pottery suggest that the tower was caught up in the fighting around Edinburgh in 1650, when
Cromwell invaded Edinburgh as part of the
Anglo-Scottish War. Other evidence to this effect is the removal of the
parapets, damage to the tower and the finding of cannonballs in nearby fields. ==Design==