Rusco Tower, sometimes called Rusco Castle, is atower house near Gatehouse of Fleet. It is located off the roadside with lovely views but is a private residence with no access. Despite being small in size and out of the way location it has a very interesting history.

~ History ~

1494 ~ A small tower house is built for Mariota Carson and her husband Robert Gordon, on lands given to them by her father, John Carson.

1502 ~ Gordon is bought before the Lords of Council charged with the destruction ofa house on Crown lands within the barony of Kirk Andrews in order to remove timber and slates for the building of his new tower. He claims the house belongs to him, but as he is unable to prove it, is ordered to pay 1,000 merks in damages.

1504 ~ The tower is finally completed. Gordon, heir to the Lochinvar estate takes the name Rusco for his tower.

However, Gordon is forced to leave Rusco soon after its completion as together with his brother Alexander, they are implicated in the murder of John Dunbar the previous year. They are forced to flee the country. Gordon is declared an outlaw, his possessions are confiscated, including his estate which is let by the Crown to a neighbour.

1507 ~ Gordon is given permission to travel to France.

1511 ~ Gordon is pardoned for his part in the crime and allowed to return toScotlandand take up his estate once more.

1516 ~ Gordon is knighted.

1523 ~ Gordon spends several years in litigation with the Agnews of Lochnaw, who are related to him by marriage.

He decides to bring the legal dispute to an end by abducting Andrew Agnew, the heir of Lochnaw and his own grandson, and imprisoning him at Rusco. When the boy's uncle, Matthew Agnew, demands that he be returned within three days, Gordon claims that he had been placed in a school in Dumfries.

1524 ~ Robert Gordon dies.

Their eldest son James Gordon seizes the tower and imprisons his mother, fearing that she will make it over to her new husband, Thomas Maclellan of Bombie. Gordon later kills Maclellan on the High Street in Edinburgh in broad daylight, while a court case intended to settle the matter is underway.

Gordon later seizes and imprisons Janet Porter, an heiress who has recently married John McCulloch, a lesser member of the Cardoness McCulloch family. Gordon attempts to force her to sign over her inheritance, the Blacket estate, to him instead of her new husband, and McCulloch, who is not powerful enough to recapture his wife by force, applies to the courts.

Gordon fails to appear at the hearing, but in his absence the court orders him to return Porter to her husband. It is not clear whether the order is obeyed, but records show that the Gordon family came to own the Blacket estate shortly afterwards as he intended.

1600's ~ The Gordons sell the tower after they had taken possession of Lochinvar and it is inhabited by local families continuously until the late 19th or early 20th century, but abandoned and allowed to fall into ruin between the first and Second World Wars.

1970's ~ The Tower is designated aCategory A listed building, and was shortly afterwards purchased and renovated by Graham Carson, a Scottish businessman, who went on to live in it from 1979 until 2006. Carson attempted to discover whether his family was related to the Carsons who originally owned the estate, but was unable to document a connection. It remains in the Carson family, and is still used as a domestic dwelling.