Archaeology Notes
Event ID 718919
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/718919
NT63NE 1 65117 36590
(NT 6510 3658) Smailholm House (NAT).
OS 6" map, Roxburghshire, (1924).
Smailholm House. This characteristic laird's house of the early 18th century stands in the remains of its policies 430yds NE of the parish church. Three storeys in height, it is L-shaped on plan with the re-entrant angle opening towards the S and the wing projecting SE in alinement with the NE gable of the main block. The masonry is white- washed rubble with exposed freestone dressings, which are backset and chamfered; the walls were obviously intended for harling. The gables are crow-stepped, the skew-puts being carved with grotesque heads of which one has fallen and now lies in a rockery in the garden. The roofs have been renewed and the chimney-stacks are rebuilt in brick. Apart from these repairs, and from the provision in 1864 of a porch on the NW. side, the house has been little altered and is still occupied. The entrance, situated within the re-entrant angle at the N end of the SW wall of the wing, has a bolection-moulded architrave with lugs, which sweeps upward at the lintel in an ogival curve. Below are the initials A(NDREW) D(ON), separated by a device which may have been a pome granate, the family crest, and flanked by the three mascles of the family coat and the date 1707. On either side of the doorway there is a small blind window with a semicircular head. The nearest window to the SE of the entrance has three small sunk panels on the lintel. The central panel contains the initials J D and E K for James Don, 1st of Smailholm and father of Andrew Don, and his wife, while those at the sides together supply the date 1663. Two similar panels, in this case set one above the other, occur on the lintel of the back door, which is on the NW side and is sheltered by the porch. The upper one is inscribed JULY 29, the lower one AD 1717. They were presumably set up by Andrew Don, who did not die until 1720. (C B Balfour 1899).
The house is simply and compactly planned. On the ground floor the entrance opens into a hall which occupies the full width of the wing and contains a fine oak staircase with a panelled balustrade. This staircase, which rises to the garret in the roof, is in exceptionally good preservation, the only parts missing being three of the small globular finials that capped the newel-posts. The remainder of the wing on this floor is devoted to the dining-room, which has Georgian deal panelling. On the NW side of the hall a central passage leads through the main block to the back door. This gives access to the modernised kitchen at the SW end of the main block and to a vaulted cellar at the NE end. On the first floor there are three large rooms, all panelled and all possessing bolection-moulded stone fireplaces. There are six rooms on the second floor, two of them panelled and four having bolection-moulded fireplaces.
The house is probably to be dated to the year 1707, but it may replace an earlier house represented by the vaulted cellar on the ground floor. Although the fabric certainly seems to be all of a piece, there is some evidence for there having been an older house here, as two ash-trees, at least two centuries old and self-seeded, can be seen growing out of the ruin of an outhouse on the lawn to the SW. Illustrations are given in RCAHMS 1956, figs.202 and 317.
In 1663 James Don, clerk of Kelso, was granted a charter to the twenty-merk lands of "Smalhome" with the buildings, etc., formerly belonging to William, Earl of Roxburgh, (Reg Magni Sig Reg Scot 1984), Andrew Don, his second son, succeeded to the property as Alexander, the eldest was "fatuous".
RCAHMS 1956, visited August 1938.
Fully described above. Mr Andrew Liddle of Smailholm could provide no additional information.
Visited by OS (WDJ) 21 Sptember 1963.
