Smailholm House

Borders: About 6 miles west and north of Kelso, on minor road east of B6397, to north-east of Smailholm village.

Smailholm House is an L-plan house of three storeys with corbiestepped gables and harled and whitewashed walls. One of the cellars of the house is vaulted, and the building has several panels, one with the date 1707 and the initials of Andrew Don, from when the house was built or rebuilt. There is also an earlier panel with 1663, and the building may date from the 17th century, or earlier.
  ‘Smelummtoun’ is marked on Blaeu’s map of Berwickshire as a substantial settlement. A bastle house at ‘Smellam Mylne’ was ‘won’ by the English in 1544, although this may be Smailholm Mill [NT 647373], which was half a mile to the north of Smailholm House.
  Not to be confused with Smailhom Tower, this part of the property may have been held by the Purves family, as in 1484 David Purves was accused of treason, including the betrayal of Dunbar Castle and the inbringing of Englishmen for the destruction of the king and the realm. Purves was not at home when the Sheriff Depute came calling at Smailholm, and was found guilty and forfeited in his absence.
  The property went to the Kerr Earls of Roxburghe and is mentioned in a ratification of 1669 in favour of William Kerr, Earl of Roxburghe, and then to the Dons, who held the property in the second half of the 17th and into the 18th century.