A stark Border tower on a rocky knoll, the childhood haunt that fired Walter Scott's imagination
Open to visitorsa Historic Environment Scotland site — many are free to wander; staffed ones charge and keep set hours
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
Smailholm is a peel tower — a tall, narrow stone tower built for defence during the centuries of cross-border raiding — standing alone on a rocky outcrop with a small walled yard at its foot. It went up in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, a refuge for a farming family and their beasts when raiders came through the Borders. Walter Scott spent part of his childhood at Sandyknowe, the farm just below, and the tower and its wild setting stayed with him; it turns up in his ballads and poems. Scott is buried a few miles off at Dryburgh Abbey. The climb to the top is steep but short, and the view reaches across the Tweed valley to the Eildon and Leaderfoot hills. Historic Environment Scotland looks after the tower, near the village of Smailholm.
