Slamannan?

[Alwef]

Thanks very much for the suggestions.  Dunmore Tower looks likely and it would make an easy trip from where the family was based.

There are, however a couple of differences between the tower in my photo and Dunmore. To the left of the conical tower in my shots are a couple of structures which could be chimney stacks. These don't appear on either the modern photo or the older engraving. There is also a ridge around the tower just below the conical roof, again, not in the Dunmore pictures. The castellations also look different - more pointed.

However, the location in not crucial to my investigation since I know they lived in or around Whitburn
at the time. I do however want to put names to faces.

Thank you once again and any more ideas would be welcome.

[JAP]

Hi Alwef,

I made some scruffy sketches of the various photos and, comparing them, also found some differences between the family photos (the one which started this thread and your subsequent photo)  vis-a-vis the lovely pictures of the Dunmore Tower.  (I'm not sure if they are the same differences that you've found.)

Which is why, two or three posts back in my reply to Anne, I posed the question as to which tower is the one in the original photo (assuming it is one of those two and not a totally separate tower altogether  ).

Perhaps someone else has another tower and turret to throw into the ring 

And who knows - perhaps a positive identification of the location just might help to identify the people 

All the very best,

JAP
 

[Hannah29]

Re Linlithgow - it was the tower of St Michael's Church which was replaced back in 1964. There was a lot of comment at the time as it was considered to be too modern for such an old building. The church is right beside the palace. There's an arial photo of them on the Linlihgow Palace page of Historic Scotland's web site.

Airthrey Castle - that's now part of the University of Stirling. Definitely not any of the images posted.

Cheers

Hannah

[Hannah29]

PS

Sorry, it's not an arial view of the church and palace, just one from the other side of Linlithgow Loch.

Hannah

[Hannah29]

PS

Sorry, it's not an arial view of the church and palace, just one from the other side of Linlithgow Loch.

Hannah

[Alwef]

Hello JAP,

I think it is highly likely that it is the same tower in both photos. My grandfather is in the first, and one of his brothers from the first photo is the father in the second. In the second photo (family group) they appear to be nearer to the tower and at a slightly different angle.

Thanks for your comments, Hannah, but I'm not convinced about St Michael's church. On the church's website, it states that the church tower lost its crown in about 1820 and a new one was only added in 1964 - so the tower was 'topless' at the time of my photos.

[mosstrooper]

I know Linlithgow Palace and St Michaels very well. If you imagine the Palace and Church as a square, the North and West sides are bound by Linlithgow Loch, the South side joins directly onto the Town itself, and the west side does not have a bank of trees which are shown in the original photo.

The Palace and Church are built on a hill and you are looking up at them from whatever side you approach.

[JAP]

Hi Alwef,

I think we might be talking at cross purposes 
I wasn't suggesting that your family photos were anything other than of one and the same tower   
What I was doing was supporting the doubts you yourself had expressed as to whether your tower actually is the Dunmore Tower - as you said (and I agree) there do seem to be some differences.
Nevertheless, your tower is certainly very similar to pictures of the Dunmore Tower.  And is also very similar to pictures of the Airthrey Castle tower.  Perhaps one of the folk with local knowledge can comment on whether it would be possible to see either of these towers from a perspective similar to the view of your tower in your family photos (though no doubt there have been great changes to both those areas since the period when your photos were taken).
I guess there still remains the possibility that your tower is yet another tower which hasn't yet been mentioned ...
And - as you have said - it might not be in Stirlingshire (or might not even be in Scotland though you suspect that it is). 

JAP   

[apanderson]

I'm loving this thread!   

I haven't a clue where or what the tower is but there's been some fantastic links posted which hopefully will help anybody searching in the future.

A real whistlestop tour of my wee part of the country!

Anne