English: Dumbarton Rock: White Tower Crag [This is the last in a linked series of articles about Dumbarton Rock. See the end of 1380091 (the first article in the series) for a list of the reference works that are cited here in abbreviated form.]

Of the two peaks that make up Dumbarton Rock, the western peak, White Tower Crag, is the higher, at 73 metres.

At present, the main structures on White Tower Crag are a trig point (1382302), a flagstaff, and the direction indicator that is shown in this photo, partly enclosed by the ruined semicircular base of a building. (The foreshore area at Levengrove is visible in the background, behind the pillar.)

Early in the site's history, when the Rock served as the fortress of the Strathclyde Britons, "the western of the two peaks, the White Tower Crag, would have been too pointed for anything other than a look-out post" [HD, p11, 71].

In the medieval period, several buildings were clustered in the level terrace between the two peaks (the Over Bailey – see https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1381252 ). However, the western peak was the location of the White Tower, a watch-tower which gave the crag its modern name [HD, p73]; it was apparently at, or close to, the location of the modern direction indicator shown in this image.

The White Tower is shown in John Slezer's view (c. 1690) of the Rock from the north-west [HD, p74], and is mentioned even earlier, in a 1580 inventory [MacPhail, p132]. However, that tower has been completely destroyed; the ruined semicircular base that is currently visible here is of unknown origin.

As for the direction finder, it gives distances and heights of about forty locations that are up to 32 miles away. Its inscription reads:

DUMBARTON ROCK Height 240.4ft : Lat. 55°56´ : Lon. 4°33´ W M – Miles. H – Height in Feet. This Plate presented to H.M. OFFICE OF WORKS. by the LONDON-DUMBARTONSHIRE ASSOCIATION 1932. Sir Iain Colquhoun Bart., D.S.O. President Unveiled by PROVOST BILSLAND – DUMBARTON.

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