Clan Scott - Smailholm Tower - Photo Print

Photographer Aly Wight took this photograph of Smailholm Tower in the Scottish Borders, one of the small fortified houses that families built to survive centuries of raiding along the Scottish-English frontier. The Scotts of Harden, a branch of the powerful Buccleuch family, held the tower from 1645. They were Border Reivers, cattle raiders and fighters who thrived in the lawless country between the two kingdoms. The young Walter Scott, who would become Scotland's greatest novelist, spent his childhood summers at nearby Sandyknowe Farm absorbing the ballads that shaped everything he wrote.

If you carry the Scott name, Smailholm is a good place to understand where the family came from. Reivers first, then storytellers.