Smailholm Tower: A Scottish Peel Tower near Kelso
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Scotland
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Tower
On this page8 sections
History
Smailholm Tower is a Scottish peel tower in the United Kingdom, built on Lady Hill near Kelso in the fifteenth century or early sixteenth century by the Pringle family, originally called Hoppringle. Peel towers were fortified tower houses built in the Anglo-Scottish border region, where communities faced recurring cross-border raids. The Pringles held the lands of Smailholm from the early fifteenth century and managed part of Ettrick Forest for their feudal superior as followers of the Earl of Douglas.
The Pringle family and the border raids
The family’s history at Smailholm includes a legal dispute from 1482, when James Hoppringill of Smailholm, David Hoppingrill’s son, was sued by Margaret Kerr for 300 merks. James married Isobell Murray, and their heir, David Hoppringill, married Margaret Lundy. Their eldest son was also named David.
The tower’s defensive role reflected the insecurity of the borderlands. English soldiers attacked Smailholm in 1543, 1544, and 1546. During the last assault, the garrison of Wark Castle sacked the tower and carried away prisoners and cattle. In 1640, Sir Andrew Ker of Greenhead successfully defended Smailholm against an English attack.
Later owners and alterations
Around the time of the 1640 defence, the property passed to the Scotts of Harden, ancestors of Sir Walter Scott. They rebuilt parts of the tower and its barmkin, the enclosed outer yard used for protection and associated domestic and agricultural activities. The upper parts of the tower were also remodelled during the seventeenth century.
After the family moved to nearby Sandyknowe in the eighteenth century, Smailholm Tower declined into decay. Around 1800, Scott’s uncle restored the building and made it safe, reportedly in response to Scott’s poetry. Scott had visited the tower during his childhood, including visits to his paternal grandfather, and spent substantial time there for the benefit of his health. Smailholm became the setting for his ballad The Eve of St John and appeared in Marmion.
Literary associations and modern conservation
J. M. W. Turner later visited Smailholm with Scott and included a sketch of the tower in Scott’s Poetical Works. Henry Fox Talbot, an English pioneer of photography, subsequently followed the same itinerary and published images of the tower in Sun Pictures in Scotland. These associations connected the building with nineteenth-century interest in Scotland’s historical landscapes and border traditions.
The Earl of Ellesmere, Smailholm’s last owner, transferred the tower to state care in 1950. It was restored during the 1980s and converted into a museum. A later project in 2010 and 2011 reinstated a turf roof across the whole structure after experiments begun in 2006 tested turf and mats of sedum plants as methods of controlling damp in historic buildings. Smailholm is a Scheduled Ancient Monument in the care of Historic Environment Scotland and has been a category A listed building, a designation for buildings of national or exceptional architectural or historic interest, since 1971.
Remains
The tower house
Smailholm Tower stands on a rocky crag and is a relatively small rectangular tower house of four storeys. It measures about 12.1 metres by 9.4 metres and provides approximately 200 square metres of floor space. Its walls are built of basalt rubble and are about 2.4 metres thick. The entrance on the south side is set within a large red-sandstone arch, while a turnpike stair, a narrow winding stair within a tower, occupies the south-east corner.
The vaulted basement was originally divided into two floors by a wooden intermediate floor reached by ladder. Above it lies the hall, whose northern fireplace incorporates a carved human face. The top storey has an unusual elliptical stone vault supporting a stone-flag roof. Parapet walks, or passages behind protective parapets, run along the longer north and south sides. The northern parapet is interrupted by a chimney, and the southern parapet by a window. The upper parts include a gunloop, a small opening for firearms, in the west gable overlooking the barmkin.
The barmkin and associated buildings
The tower is enclosed by the remains of a stone barmkin wall. The courtyard measures approximately 16 metres by 19 metres and contains the foundations of a single-storey seventeenth-century hall house on its northern side. A two-roomed kitchen block occupies the southern side. The tower was later extended through the construction of a hall house and a second kitchen within the enclosure.
The eastern part of the barmkin formerly contained a small garden. Its western part is better preserved, with walls surviving to first-floor level around a narrow entrance in the west wall. Ruins of outbuildings and a small chapel remain visible within the enclosure. A ditch protects the western approach, while the steep face of the rocky outcrop naturally defends the other three sides.
Surrounding archaeology and museum display
About 100 metres south-east of the tower, earthworks mark a much older settlement, probably dating from the first millennium BC. Inside the restored tower, the museum display includes an extensive array of model figures illustrating the history of Smailholm and stories associated with Walter Scott. Two local artists created the display using embroidery and modelling techniques.
