Another day of blue skies and stiff winds as we set off in the usual direction towards Kelso on our way to visit a peel tower, the home of Walter Scott, and yet another house associated with Mary Queen of Scots. The journey has taken well over an hour by the time we reach our destination at the bottom of a track leading up past a farm towards a stone tower at the top of the hill.
Smailholm Tower
Smailholm Tower | The Castles of Scotland, Coventry | Goblinshead
Sited high on a rocky outcrop, Smailholm is a small rectangular tower set within a stone barmkin wall.
This 65 ft towerhouse was built by a well-known Scottish Borders family in the first half of the 15th century, and today you can enjoy stunning views of the surrounding countryside from Smailholm Tower’s battlements.
Inside the tower is a model of this Pringle residence and a charming collection of costume figures and tapestries relating to Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders. It was the sight of Smailholm that fired Walter Scott’s imagination when, as a young boy, he was brought up by his grandparents at the nearby farm of Sandyknowe.
Allegedly a place that inspired Sir Walter Scott. Ancestors of the great Romantic novelist had called the tower home, and Scott learned the power of border ballads as a young infant living on the estate.
Take in the completeness of the 15th-century laird’s residence – the four-storey tower house remains roofed and floored
See the foundations of the outer hall and kitchen next to the tower
Get up close to the substantial enclosure wall – a mighty defence with its walls 2m deep
This is Smailholm tower is a five storey tower-house (peel tower) which stands on the summit of Lady Hill.
A ditch protects the western approach to the tower, the other three sides being naturally protected by the face of an outcrop.
Dating from from the late 15th or early 16th century it was built to protect its occupants from raiders from over the borders.
There are a few bit of the familiar fencing on one side and warnings to keep away but we’re allowed inside – where it’s nicely sheltered from the fierce east wind. The ground floor of the tower-house would have oriiginally functioned as a store-room with a hatch in the roof allowing goods to be raised or lowered to and from the floor above.
We head up the spiral stairs to the that first floor which contained the hall, where the family gathered for meals and where public business was carried out. This room has large windows, which were protected by iron grilles. Bedrooms and private chambers were located on the floors above.
Above the vault is the hall, with a fireplace to the north featuring a carved human face. The uppermost compartments are also barrel vaulted. The top floor has an unusual elliptical stone vault which supports a stone flag roof. Parapet walks run along the north and south sides, although both are interrupted – the north by a chimney, and the south by a window. These upper parts of the tower, housing one of the only two gun loops, situated in the west gable overlooking the barmkin, were remodelled in the 17th century.
To be honest here isn’t really a lot to see. The tower is now used to display an extensive array of models illustrating the history of Smailholm, and the stories of Sir Walter Scott. This display is created by two local artists and uses high quality embroidery and modelling techniques.
You can still see the remains of the walled enclosure known as a barmkin, or barmkin, which still stands over 2m high in places, and which contained a hall and outbuildings such as stables or kitchens. The tower itself was further protected by a pair of gunloops, that is, holes in the masonry to allow the use of hand firearms. One of these is located directly over the entrance.
The top level shows evidence of rebuilding in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. This alteration was designed to station a watchman, probably in response to a 1587 Act of Council, which directed landowners in the Borders to keep watch night and day, and to burn bales of straw in event of trouble.
English soldiers attacked in 1543 and 1544, and in 1646 the garrison of Wark Castle sacked the tower and carried off prisoners and cattle.
‘Everie man that hath a castle or tower of stone shall, upon everie fray raised in the night, give warning to the countries by fire in the topps of the castle or tower’.
(Laws of the Marchezs)
The above was required in c 1570, and the present north parapet wall has a watchman’s seat and a recess for his lantern. An outer stone wall, which enclosed the barmkin, survives to some extent on its western side where a bar-hole confirms the entrance. The north west part of the enclosure held various outbuildings, rebuilt in 1650 for the new owners, the Scott’s of Harden, ancestors of Sir Walter Scott.
A ditch protects the western approach to the tower, the other three sides being naturally protected by the face of an outcrop. One hundred metres to the southeast, more earth- works mark the presence of a much older settlement, probably dating from the first mil-lennium BC.
From 2006, experiments were conducted on the roof to establish the most suitable damp-proofing method to apply to other such properties. This included the planting of turf or mats of Sedum plants. As a result of this, a restoration project in 2910/11 reinstated a roof using turf over the entire structure.
Abbotsford – Walter Scott’s House Nice guide – kept apologising for being a ‘generalist’ because she thought we wanted archaeology so spent rather a lot of time showing us Scott’s ancient pieces collected from different sites throughout Scotland.
To Innerleithen
Innerleithen – Wikipedia
The nucleus of the estate was a small farm of 100 acres (0.40 km2), called Cartleyhole, nicknamed Clarty (i.e., muddy) Hole, and was bought by Scott on the lapse of his lease (1811) of the neighbouring house of Ashestiel.[4] Scott renamed it “Abbotsford” after a neighbouring ford used by the monks of Melrose Abbey.
Following a modest enlargement of the original farmhouse in 1811–12, massive expansions took place in 1816–19 and 1822–24. In this mansion Scott gathered a large library, a collection of ancient furniture, arms and armour, and other relics and curiosities especially connected with Scottish history, notably the Celtic Torrs Pony-cap and Horns and the Woodwrae Stone, all now in the Museum of Scotland.[6][7] Scott described the resulting building as “a sort of romance in Architecture”[8] and “a kind of Conundrum Castle to be sure”.
The last and principal acquisition was that of Toftfield (afterwards named Huntlyburn), purchased in 1817. The new house was then begun and completed in 1824.
The general ground-plan is a parallelogram, with irregular outlines, one side overlooking the Tweed; and the style is mainly the Scottish Baronial. With his architects William Atkinson and Edward Blore Scott was a pioneer of the Scottish Baronial style of architecture: the house is recognized as a highly influential creation with themes from Abbotsford being reflected across many buildings in the Scottish Borders and beyond.
The manor as a whole appears as a “castle-in-miniature”, with small towers and imitation battlements decorating the house and garden walls.[11] Into various parts of the fabric were built relics and curiosities from historical structures, such as the doorway of the old Tolbooth in Edinburgh.
Scott collected many of these curiosities to be built into the walls of the South Garden, which previously hosted a colonnade of gothic arches along the garden walls. Along the path of the former colonnade sits the remains of Edinburgh’s 15th century Mercat Cross and several examples of classical sculpture.
The estate and its neo-Medieval features nod towards Scott’s desire for a historical feel, but the writer ensured that the house would provide all the comforts of modern living. As a result, Scott used the space as a proving-ground for new technologies. The house was outfitted with early gas lighting and pneumatic bells connecting residents with servants elsewhere in the house.
Scott had only enjoyed his residence one year when (1825) he met with that reverse of fortune which involved the estate in debt. In 1830, the library and museum were presented to him as a free gift by the creditors. The property was wholly disencumbered in 1847 by Robert Cadell, the publisher, who cancelled the bond upon it in exchange for the family’s share in the copyright of Sir Walter’s works.
Scott’s only son Walter did not live to enjoy the property, having died on his way from India in 1847. Among subsequent possessors were Scott’s grandson Walter Scott Lockhart (later Walter Lockhart Scott, 1826–1853), his younger sister Charlotte Harriet Jane Hope-Scott (née Lockhart) 1828–1858, J. R. Hope Scott, QC, and his daughter (Scott’s great-granddaughter), the Hon. Mrs Maxwell Scott.[4]
The house was opened to the public in 1833, but continued to be occupied by Scott’s descendants until 2004. The last of his direct descendants to hold the Lairdship of Abbotsford was his great-great-great-granddaughter Dame Jean Maxwell-Scott (8 June 1923 – 5 May 2004). She inherited it from her elder sister Patricia Maxwell-Scott in 1998. The sisters turned the house into one of Scotland’s premier tourist attractions, after they had to rely on paying visitors to afford the upkeep of the house. It had electricity installed only in 1962.
Dame Jean was at one time a lady-in-waiting to Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, patron of the Dandie Dinmont Club, a breed of dog named after one of Sir Walter Scott’s characters; and a horse trainer, one of whose horses, Sir Wattie, ridden by Ian Stark, won two silver medals at the 1988 Summr Olympics.
On Dame Jean’s death the Abbotsford Trust was established to safeguard the estate.[5]
In 2005, Scottish Borders Council considered an application by a property developer to build a housing estate on the opposite bank of the River Tweed from Abbotsford, to which Historic Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland objected.[15][16] There have been modifications to the proposed development, but it is still being opposed in 2020.]
Sir Walter Scott rescued the “jougs” from Threave Castle in Dumfries and Galloway and attached them to the castellated gateway he built at Abbotsford.[18]
Sir Walter Scott rescued the “jougs” from Threave Castle in Dumfries and Galloway and attached them to the castellated gateway he built at Abbotsford.[18]
We drive to Traquair for lunch. The town name means ‘the village on the winding stream’. It was populated by a settlement of British speaking people prior to the arrival of the English speaking Northumbrians.
Traquair House – Iain the loquaciously funny guide. Priests Hole – the ‘bric-s-brac room – Mary Queen of Scots bed. The brewery.
Traquair House, approximately 11 km (7 miles) southeast of Peebles, is claimed to be the oldest continually inhabited house in Scotland. Whilst not strictly a castle, it is built in the style of a fortified mansion. It pre-dates the Scottish Baronial style of architecture, and may have been one of the influences on this style.
The house is built on the site of a hunting seat used by the Scottish Kings from the 12th century, though no part of the present building can be dated with certainty before the 15th century. Alexander I was the first Scottish King to stay and hunt at Traquair. At the time it was a remote ‘castle’, surrounded by forest. Upon Alexander III’s death in 1286, the peace of the Borders region was shattered, and Traquair became a key link in the chain of defence that guarded the Tweed Valley, against English invasion.
The original tower house, three stories high with an attic, occupies the northern end of the present main building. A new wing was added adjoining its south wall, about the middle of the 16th century. Further south facing extensions and angle turrets were added later that century, when most of the new wing was four storeys high. By the mid 17th century the tower itself had been raised to the same height and an angle turret added to the northwest corner. The walls are whitewashed, and there are turrets, one with gun loops, and dormer windows, as well as a steep pitched roof. There is also a priest’s cell, on the top floor, complete with secret staircase.
The Bear Gates at the main entrance to the grounds, were installed by the fifth Earl, Charles Stuart, in 1738. When they were closed, after Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) passed through in 1745, the Earl vowed they would never be opened again until a Stuart King returned.
At the end of the 17th century, plans were drawn up for further extensions by the Edinburgh architect, James Smith, overseer of the Royal Works in Scotland. The formal courtyard was built, along with the two service wings, which were remodelled in the late 18th century and early 19th century. The present north wing includes stables and a working brew house. The chapel dates only from the mid 19th century following the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.
Traquair is a 50-room house. The rooms include: ‘The drawing Room’, containing ancestral portraits and photographs of the current residents. ‘The Dressing Room’, decorated to demonstrate life in former times. The ‘Museum Room’, containing a mural dating from 1530, one of the oldest to survive in a secular building in Scotland, as wellas charters stamped with the royal seals and signatures of the Scottish Kings. ‘The King’s Room’, where Mary Queen of Scots stayed in 1566 and which contains some relics belonging to her and the Jacobites, such as her rosary, crucifix, purse, a silk quilt, and letters bearing her signature. ‘The Still Room’, where breakfast is taken among the 18th century porcelain that decorates the shelves. And ‘The Dining Room’, one of the last additions to the house, built in the late 17th century. The 18th century library contains more than 3,000 volumes. Although three lairds made alterations to the house prior to the 17th century, Traquair has changed little architecturally since then.
The Traquair House Brewery was revived in 1965 by Peter Maxwell Stuart, the 20th laird of Traquair, using the 18th century domestic brewery equipment previously used to make beer for the house. Ale is fermented in the original oak tuns, some of which are over 200 years old. The brewery makes a range of beers, though the two main brands are Jacobite Ale and House Ale.
