Tower houses

A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation.

Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strategic points with reduced forces. At the same time, they were also used as an 's residence, around which a castle town was often constructed.

After their initial appearance in Ireland, Scotland, Basque Country and England during the High Middle Ages, tower houses were also built in other parts of western Europe as early as the late 14th century, especially in parts of France and Italy. In Italian medieval communes, tower houses were increasingly built by the local barons as power centres during times of internal strife.

Scotland has many fine examples of medieval tower houses, including Crathes Castle, Craigievar Castle and Castle Fraser, and in the unstable Scottish Marches along the border between England and Scotland the peel tower was the typical residence of the wealthy, with others being built by the government. In seventeenth century Scotland these castles became the pleasurable retreats of the upper-classes. While able to adopt a military nature, they were furnished for comfort and social interaction.

Tower houses are very commonly found in northern Spain, especially in the Basque Country, some of them dating back to the 8th century. They were mainly used as noble residences and were able to provide shelter against several enemies, starting with the Arabs and later Castile and Aragon. However, due to complex legal charters, few had boroughs attached to them, and that is why they are usually found standing alone in some strategic spot like a crossroad, rather than on a height. During the petty wars among the Basque nobles from 1379 to 1456, the upper floors (with defensive capacity) of most of them were demolished. Few have survived unscathed to the present day. Since then they have been used only as residences by their traditional noble owners (Saint Ignatius of Loyola was born in one of them, still standing) or converted into farm houses.

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