Accessing Scotland's Past Project
Event ID 562256
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Accessing Scotland's Past Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/562256
Smailholm Tower is a tower-house of sixteenth-century date which occupies a prominent position on the summit of Lady Hill.
Standing five storeys high, the structure is oblong on plan, with walls over 2m thick. It is built predominantly of whinstone, with contrasting red sandstone dressings used for the corner stones or quoins. It lay within a walled enclosure 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.
Inside, the ground floor of the tower-house originally functioned as a store-room. A hatch in the roof allowed goods to be raised and lowered to and from the floor above. The first floor contained the hall, the main public room 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.
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.
The Scotts, who bought Smailholm in the early seventeenth century, had another, probably two-storeyed, building erected within the barmkin. This was later removed. Excavations carried out between 1979 and 1981 revealed that this later addition was built on the site of an earlier structure, thought to be an outer hall used for entertaining guests, which had an adjoining smaller, private chamber. Opposite the hall was a kitchen, which revealed evidence for the consumption of mutton, beef, fowl and sea fish at the site.
Text prepared by RCAHMS as part of the Accessing Scotland's Past project
