Sandieknow or Smailholm Tower

Category

Library Item

Item no

14778

Title

Sandieknow or Smailholm Tower

Description

Skene presents a dramatic, highly romanticised representation of Smailholm Tower. The tower, broodingly, sits astride a rocky crag with a lochside view. Heavy rain clouds approach from the left hand side of the painting. Blue sky is juxtaposed with grey cloud. In the background, suggesting a westwards perspective, are the three Eildon Hills, rising to the south of Melrose. Skene's viewpoint is from close to Sandyknowe Farm, slightly further to the east.

Artist / maker

Skene, James

Date

1830

Size

26 x 45 cm

Type

Watercolour

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

Item is dated 29th April 1830.
Smailholm Tower, magnificently situated by Sandyknowe Crags, is thought to have been built towards the end of the 15th century by the Pringle family. With a rocky backdrop and a huge uninterrupted view towards the Cheviots, the tower is a Borders landmark, its position as romantic as it is tactical. In the 16th century, the tower came into the hands of Sir Walter Scott's ancestor, another Walter Scott, traditionally known as Auld Watt of Harden. Of his lineage, confirming his own credentials as a Borders minstrel, the novelist was tremendously proud. Until the Union of the Crowns, the austere tower was associated with cross border raiding, also known as Reiving. By the early 18th century, the Scott family was living at nearby Sandyknowe farm. It was to Sandyknowe, to his paternal grandfather Robert and Aunt Jane, that the future novelist was brought as a young boy for the sake of his health. Here his youthful imagination was fired by ballads and stories, not least of Auld Watt and Smailholm:

Then rise those crags, that mountain'd tower,
Which charm'ed my fancy's waking hour (1)

The Tower is of simple design, comprising three storeys, each with one large chamber, the third storey leading out to wall walks to the north and south. The Tower is now in the ownership of Historic Environment Scotland and contains a Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders Exhibition.

(1) Scott, Sir Walter, Marmion,, 1808, Intro to Canto Third, 158; "And still I thought that shatter'd tower/The mightiest work of human power" (178/179)

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Related subjects

Homes > Residential buildings > Towers

Landscape > Land > Rocks

Natural phenomena > Weather > Rain

Places > Scotland > Borders

Transport > Infrastructure > Walkways

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