Talk:Rusco Tower

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 06:26, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

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A 19-century view of Rusco Tower

• ... that when his widowed mother remarried, James Gordon of Lochinvar, heir to the estate of Rusco Tower, seized the castle and imprisoned her to ensure that she did not make it over to her new husband, whom he later killed? Source: Reid, 1947, pages 33-34 "Sir Robert Gordon died in 1524, being survived for 12 years by his widow... ...Within a year she had remarried... ...there may have been nothing to stop her leaving Rusco to the McLellanes... ...This incensed her eldest son, James Gordon of Lochinvar, so much that he decided to abduct her... ...he seized Rusco... ...she was kept a prisoner... ...Lochinvar and his friends killed Thomas M'Clellane of Bombie in the High Street of Edinburgh."
  • ALT1... that when his widowed mother remarried, James Gordon seized Rusco Tower (illustrated) and imprisoned her to ensure that she did not make it over to her new husband, whom he later killed? Source: as above.

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Stonegate (York)

Created by Girth Summit (talk). Self-nominated at 13:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC).

• @Girth Summit: Can you make the hook little concise and more interesting? ~ Amkgp 💬 16:57, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Amkgp Fair comment on the length, I've reduced. But more interesting - seriously? I've given you a dead father, a remarried mother, a son who storms a castle and imprisons her, and who then kills her new husband - all in 200-odd characters - and you say it needs to be more interesting?!?! How do you like the ALT1? GirthSummit _(blether) 19:55, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• ALT1 tells us everything, interesting article indeed, Girth Summit. Ready to go now. ~ Amkgp 💬 21:14, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• @Girth Summit: what is the source for the poem in the box? Yoninah (talk) 23:37, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• @Girth Summit and Yoninah: Nicholson, John (1843). Historical and Traditional Tales in Prose and Verse: Connected with the South of Scotland. Original and Select. J. Nicholson from Harvard University collection. pp. 335–336. Is this is the source? ~ Amkgp 💬 05:59, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Amkgp Thanks for digging out that source - I haven't come across the story concerning Sir Hugh Gordon in my other sources, I might try and add something to the article based on that - even more drama said to have unfolded at Rusco! :) GirthSummit _(blether) 10:46, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Yoninah The poem is printed in full in two of the sources, referenced in the body of the article where I mention the poem. Should I repeat the refs in the poem box? GirthSummit _(blether) 07:06, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• @Girth Summit: Yes, please. Yoninah (talk) 10:15, 18 August 2020 (UTC) Yoninah (talk) 10:16, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Yoninah Done. I looked to see whether there was an archived copy of the original publication that I could link to, but wasn't able to find one. The Maclachlan Harper source, which prints the poem in full, was published in 1876, and the Reid source (1947) gives an original publication date of 1841, so there shouldn't be any COPYVIO concerns, but let me know if you think this needs a tag or attribution of some sort. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 10:40, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you. I don't think the date's a problem; other editors copy hymns and song lyrics all the time. Restoring tick per Amkgp's review. Yoninah (talk) 10:46, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Some quick observations

• "she would leave make it over to her new husband" Too many words there.
• "The Gordons sold the tower in the 17th century, and it was inhabited continuously until the late 19th or early 20th century, and was the subject of a poem, Rusco Castle, a Tale of the Olden Time, published in 1841." Too many run-ons, chop it into two sentences.
• "The building had been abandoned and had fallen into a state of disrepair by the middle of the 20th century." Can probably lose the second "had".
• It would be nice to mention in the lead that Graham does not appear to be related to Mariota.
• "The external footprint of the tower is a rectangle.." "is rectangular" would sound neater.
• "..and about 15 metres (49 ft) high." Technically, the way the sentence is written, we're still talking about the "footprint" of the tower here.
• What is a "cap house"?
• I know there is a wikilink, but the article would benefit from explaining what "put to the horn" means.
• "to sign over her inheritance, the Blacket estate, over to him" Too many "over"s.
• "It was sold to the 17th century.." What did the 17th century do with it? (Wrong wording here, I suspect!)
• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles, short poems, which I think "Rusco Castle, a Tale of the Olden Time" should be in quotation marks, as so, rather than italics, which is saved for "long or epic poems".
• "The tower was lived in until the late nineteenth or early twentieth century" Odd to now switch to nineteenth/twentieth where most of the article uses 19th/20th.

Okay, not so quick maybe... Hope it helps. Harrias ^talk 20:55, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

And some more

My first two comments to be duplicated Harrias's. So do you want to deal with theirs, then I'll have a look?

Gog the Mild (talk) 21:35, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Harrias - thanks for your comments above, very helpful. I think I've addressed all of them. I think Cap house probably shouldn't be a red link, I might attempt to address that at some point, but I've tried to give an impression of what it means; I've also attempted to explain what putting someone to the horn means - our article on the subject isn't actually very good, might need to do something about that too at some point...

Gog the Mild, if there's anything you'd like to add, that would be very welcome. GirthSummit _(blether) 09:47, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• I have done a little copy editing. Revert anything you don't like.
• "After Robert Gordon died and Carson remarried, their eldest son James Gordon seized the tower and imprisoned his mother, fearing that she would make it over to her new husband, whom he later killed on the High Street in Edinburgh while a court case intended to settle the matter was ongoing." Slightly long sentence.
• The sentence on the poem in the lead breaks up the chronological flow IMO. Suggest moving to very end of the lead.
• Map: Strictly it shows the 'Location of the tower within Dumfries and Galloway'.
• MacGibbon (699041584) and McLachlan Harper (5034323) need OCLCs.
• The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, from the Twelfth to the Eitheenth Century: Volume III has a typo.
• Name: Do we know how it was referred to in its first mention in the literature?
• "looking down into the river valley" Is it known which river valley?
• "with a wall walk around its parapet" Possibly 'with a wall walk inside its parapet'?
• "in the south east corner is a cap house, a small attic covering ..." Should the comma be a colon?
• "The ground floor, which has an entresol level, is vaulted, which is divided into a number of store rooms and guard rooms" "which ... which ..." and the second one doesn't quite work for me.
• "In the west window, a door gives access" That seems odd.

• Knight may be a less EGGy link for "Knighted".
• "Gordon spent several years tied up in litigation with the Agnews of Lochnaw" Suggest deleting "tied up".
• "Gordon killed McLennan" A brief summary of the consequences, if any, for Gordon may be appropriate.

Excellent stuff. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Gog the Mild, some very perceptive comments there. Mostly done, just a few comments/questions:

Flattery will get you nowhere.

• I haven't come across OCLCs. I looked at WP:OCLC and got scared. Could you point me at an example of how to do it?

Put the book title into WorldCat - as here - making sure that you have the correct year - see the left hand margin. Once you have, click on one of the books so that you are referring to a single volume - see here - scroll down to the bottom and there is the OCLC number. And the ISBN if applicable. Simples.

• Name: I don't have a source saying 'The earliest mention is...'. Gifford I think implies that his charter is the earliest mention, but he doesn't say so explicitly (I expect that it is the earliest mention he came across). Do you think anything needs to be added there?

No, if its not in the sources, what you have is fine.

• Consequences were there none, apparently, or at least the source doesn't mention any. I spoke to L about this, and she says it was more common than one might imagine. Edinburgh was a dangerous place in the C16 - enemies, who were usually able to avoid each other when on their estates, we likely to bump into each other with their retinues; fights often broke out, and deaths were not unusual. Unless someone sufficiently motivated and powerful enough to take on the Gordons wanted to make a big deal of it, people would probably have just shaken their heads sadly and muttered things like 'Ah, what a shame, but he was provoked.' Nothing would be done, which brings us to the whole history of the developments of feuds. If I come across a source discussing this particular incident in more detail I'll definitely add something, but at the moment I don't have anything.

I suspected that might be the case. Aye, dangerous times. (I like St Scholastica Day riot for an example of a tavern brawl gone wrong, but it is well before Gordon's rush of blood.) Ah well.

GirthSummit _(blether) 12:43, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Still looks only a historical background section short of FA to me, but this is well outwith my specialist areas.

Gog the Mild (talk) 13:20, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks - that OCLC seemed painless enough. Hopefully this will be enough for a GA - if I can find more general sources to write up a historical background on the construction of tower houses in Galloway, maybe I'll see about an FA run in the future. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:45, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Rusco Tower/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 16:30, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

This article looks interesting, I'll give this one a review. Hog Farm _Bacon 16:30, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Lead

• Is there a link for Bombie?

  Bombie is a disambiguation page for a couple of Thomas MacLellan's family members (one of whom is also called Thomas Maclellan of Bombie - later generation, not the same chap); I could link it to Clan MacLellan is you think that would be helpful for readers?

Interior

• What are the second floor and the attic subdivided into?

  I assume they're bedrooms and possibly toilet facilities, but the source isn't specific - it just says they've been subdivided. I could add something like 'into a number of smaller rooms' if you like?

More to come later. Hog Farm _Bacon 16:41, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

History

• What year did the Porter incident occur in?

  Annoyingly, the source does not say. I assume it must have been between 1511, when he was pardoned, and 1523, but I can't be more specific based on the sources I've got. Reid is citing primary archival sources for this story - it's beyond my ability to access those and try to work out the dates.

External links

• The external link is used as a reference, so it is superfluous as an external link. Best to remove it

   DoneFair point - removed.

References

• Be consistent with your use of Title Case, put the obituary and Lindsay into title case

   Done

• Reid got an OCLC?

   Done

This article's in great shape. Good job, not much to pick on here. Placing on hold. Hog Farm _Bacon 18:01, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Hog Farm Thanks for taking a look - see above, I've done what I can, but a few of your points are trickier, let me know what you think I should so. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 15:33, 21 August 2020 (UTC)