Description:

Smailholm Tower stands on a rock on three sides with a ditch on the fourth side. The walls are 10' thick, and the tower is nearly 60' tall. It is mostly 17^th century work that was built entirely for defence against raids from the Border reivers. Reiving was an illegal but highly profitable activity, indulged in by generations of Scots and English families on either side of a hotly disputed border.

The tower was the property of the Pringle family in 1408. The family had been squires of the Black Douglas family before they were overthrown in 1455. David Pringle was killed, along with his eldest son and three brothers, at Flodden in 1513.

It was sold to the Scotts of Harden in 1645, but it was abandoned in 1700 for the nearby Sandyknowe Tower.

Personally I found my visit very rewarding as it does give you a sense of border life in the 1600's.