Geograph - photograph every grid square

This small brick structure stands just beside the point where (NS3976 : Whiteleys Burn flows into the River Leven.

It measures about 2.2m wide on the side with the large opening, and about 1.7m in the other direction. There is no access to the lower half; however, the building stands on an area which, in recent centuries, was regularly flooded at high tide, so the base may simply have served to keep the top half above water. Inside the opening, there is only a flat concrete floor (similar to the sloping concrete roof); the pipe that can be seen stuck through the wall at an angle is not now connected to anything inside or outside the building.

There are irregular holes in the brickwork in the upper half of the structure on the two unseen sides (light can be seen shining through one of them); compare a view from a different direction: NS3976 : Structure beside the River Leven.

I have not been able to find any information about the tower, other than what I could observe there for myself, and I can only speculate about its function. In several aspects of its construction, it is similar to a minewatcher's post that I later examined: NS4573 : Minewatchers' Post. Its appearance suggests that it dates from a similar period; compare NS2414 : Old Observation Post. However, its function cannot have been similar: the inside of the structure is much too small for it to have been a look-out post, and the view from within is, even with the more recent holes in the brickwork, extremely limited. It seems likely, then, that the tower was associated with a quarry that is known to have existed in the vicinity of the former Mains of Cardross farm; see NS3976 : Remains of quarry's washing plant. However, this is just a theory on my part.

I consulted various OS maps (1:10560) from the late nineteenth century onwards, and maps of a similar scale from as recently as 1966, but this structure is not shown on any of them. It can be seen from various places on the nearby cycle path, and from the other side of the Leven.