Built as a stronghold for the Fulton family in the 1400s, the tower was one of those destroyed by the Earl of Hertford during his 1545 Rough Wooing raids.
In 1566, Mary, Queen of Scots, stopped by the rebuilt Fulton Tower on her remarkable horseback journey from Jedburgh to visit her wounded lover James Hepburn at Hermitage Castle.
The towerhouse and lands passed to William Turnbull of Bedrule by marriage in 1570. There is a Borders legend that the last person who inhabited Fulton Tower was a Turnbull engaged in a deadly feud with the Kerrs of Ferniehirst. The story has it that the Kerrs got access to the tower by stealth and surprised Turnbull who was holding his infant child on his knee. While the gudewife prepared the sowans for supper he was amusing their child by singing the old ‘Highland Muster Roll.’
Little wat ye wha’s comin’,
Little wat ye wha’s comin’,
Jock and Tam and a’s comin’!
The Kerrs rushed in exclaiming, ‘Little wat ye wha’s coming indeed.’ Though totally unprepared, Turnbull managed to jump up, seize his sword, and being a powerful man, was preparing to fight. The tearful pleading of his wife begging him not to risk the life of their baby caused him to surrender. What became of him, after he had thus fallen into the hands of his enemies, the writer has not been able to learn.