Nisbet's Tower

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Our GPS worked wonderfully this time, pointing us directly to the Gunsgreen House, a former smuggler’s house and now museum. We would be staying in Nisbet’s Tower, a beautiful stone tower with bright red doors located right near the Gunsgreen House.

We pulled into the driveway of Nisbet’s Tower and decided to try the door before hauling all our luggage out of the car, in case anything went wrong. We had been given a code for the door, but our paper also said something about getting a key from the visitor’s center at Gunsgreen House. Since we had the code we figured there wasn’t any need for a key. I tried the code twice, but the door wouldn’t budge. Realizing how late it was, we ran over to Gunsgreen and knocked on the door. It was one minute to five and they weren’t supposed to close till 5:00, but no one answered. Without a phone number to call and no WiFi to get on to the Airbnb app, we sat in our car and wondered what to do.

Sitting in the car next to us were a mother and daughter who appeared to be eating ice cream. An odd place and time to be eating ice cream, we thought. My Mom knocked on their window and asked if they had any connection to Gunsgreen House, but they didn’t. They did seem to know quite a bit about the place and who used to work there, though, and suggested we go around to the back door to see if it was open or if someone could help us. When no one answered that door either, we saw a sign on the door with the housekeeper’s phone number and tried calling her. Unfortunately, our trac phone hasn’t been the best and we were unable to call the housekeeper.

The two ladies were still eating ice cream in their car when we walked back, but the mother jumped out and offered to help us. She said her daughter had tried calling an employee of Gunsgreen but realized they were probably on maternity leave, so they weren’t sure how to help us. When we told them that all we needed was WiFi to get onto the Airbnb app and connect with our host, they offered to have us follow their car to a nearby bar and restaurant that happened to have free WiFi.

We pulled behind them into an illegal parking spot and ran up the stairs with the mother to Oblo, the local bar. They were so kind there and had no problem at all with us using their WiFi. They even somewhat jokingly told us we could sleep on their couches if we couldn’t get into Nisbet’s Tower. Fortunately, our host was quick to respond and informed us that she would be sending the housekeeper out right away to help us get in. We thanked the mother for all her help and drove back to Nisbet’s Tower. The housekeeper was standing outside with the door open. She explained that we were correct, we didn’t need the key, and our code should have worked because it was the same one she used to open the door. She had me try our code, which once again didn’t seem to work. No wonder, I had been turning the door knob the wrong direction the whole time! I had to turn it very hard to the right to open the door. Having already broken one door lock on this trip, I was afraid to use too much force on the door knob when I had tried to open it to begin with. The mystery was solved, and we were glad to finally get into the cozy tower to get some rest for the night. The housekeeper allowed us to stay an hour later than normal checkout time the next morning, since we had gone through so much trouble.

A nice welcome basket containing some goodies and a package of gnocci and a jar of sauce was sitting on the kitchen table. We were so glad to have the gnocci and sauce for an easy supper. Since the tower has a combination washer and dryer, we decided to put our massive amounts of laundry going. It took us quite a while to figure out how to turn on the dryer since we are used to a washer and dryer being separate. Each load of clothes never did get very dry even after putting them going for large amounts of time, so we ended up draping them over a clothing rack and near the heater to help them dry. It was a long night, but we were thankful to have such a nice place to stay and delicious food to eat.

The history of Nisbet’s Tower is somewhat confusing. There was a book in the tower explaining its history, but even in that book there was a lot of conflicting information. It is said to have been an extra storage for smuggled goods, a dovecot, a coach house- all for Gunsgreen House, but another piece of the article stated it had nothing to do with Gungreen House and was nothing more than an elaborate gardening shed. Who knows. They do know that the outside of the tower has fake arrow slits, and that it was built by and named after the same man who built Gunsgreen House, John Nisbet. It was refurbished and now the inside is quite modern and cozy, and we were glad to have chosen to stay there.