Kelso Towers

Border Strongholds

Smailholm Tower

Location: Near Smailholm village, six miles north west of Kelso.

From Kelso take the A 6089 Edinburgh road. Just outside Kelso take the B 6397 to the left. The tower can be seen and is well signposted.

Map reference: 74 638 346.

Built around the early 1500s, Smailholm Tower is a fine example of the towers of the period. It is sited high on an isolated crag and set within a stone barmkin wall.

It was held by the Pringles and thereafter by the Scotts. It has been well restored.

Nearby is Sandyknowe Farm where Scott spent much of his childhood.

It houses a number of interesting displays including a museum of dolls and tapestries relating to Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders.’
There is a small shop.

Built around the early 1500s, Smailholm Tower is a fine example of the towers of the period. It is sited high on an isolated crag and set within a stone barmkin wall.

It was held by the Pringles and thereafter by the Scotts. It has been well restored.

Nearby is Sandyknowe Farm where Scott spent much of his childhood.

It houses a number of interesting displays including a museum of dolls and tapestries relating to Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders.’
There is a small shop.

Walter Scott and the tower.

It has been said that the romance of Border history is largely the result of the writings of Sir Walter Scott and other contemporary writers. While his ballads are entertaining they cannot be relied upon for their historical accuracy. Sir Walter never allowed the truth to stand in the way of a good story.

He spent much of his younger days at his grand-parents farm at Sandy Knowe in the shadow of the great Smailholm Tower, near Kelso, where there was so much to feed his boyhood imagination

SMAILHOLM TOWER

Here by the peel-tower old and grey

In the sunlit mornings a lame boy lay,

Speeding his thought o'er ridge and tree

To the magic peaks of the Eildons three;

Hearing the raider's battle-cry

In the call of the whaup that wandered by;

Filling his heart with patriot pride

From the far-flung fields of the Borderside.

The birds flew high; and the lad was lame;

Yet his step was sure in the fields of Fame;

And the lagging foot has changed to wings

That have beckoned nations and gladdened kings;

And the lilt he learned from the larks above

Has been woven in songs of war and love,

And twined into stories sweet and grand

To the lasting pride of the Borderland.

From Sandy Knowe as the winds blow down

Over Bemersyde into Melrose Town,

Laden with love they will turn aside

To the silent tomb by the silver tide,

With a borrowed note from the years of old

Of wild birds crying above the wold,

And the scent of thorn and moorland flower

When a boy lay dreaming by Smailholm Tower.

We have built him statues in street and square,

We have carved him a temple rich and rare,

But the grandest stone to his memory still

Is a grey-walled tower on the windy hill;

For there, long since, in a golden morn

Was the glamour shaped and the glory born

That marked a path for the Master's pen

And drew the chains on a world of men.

Will H. Ogilvie

By kind permission of Mrs Catherine Reid