Buckholm Tower

From abbey land to a Pringle stronghold

The lands of Buckholm once belonged to Melrose Abbey. In 1547 its commendator granted a liferent to James Hoppringill, or Pringle, of Tynnes. A record from the following year refers to men accused of assisting the English and holding the house of Buckholm. That house may have been an earlier building: its relationship to the surviving tower is uncertain.

A carved lintel believed to have come from Buckholm bears the date 1582 and the initials I.P. and N.P., linked with the Pringle family. It provides an important clue to the present tower's date, though it does not settle every question about the earlier house. The tower stands on Buckholm Hill above Gala Water, looking across a landscape also associated with the Pringles of Torwoodlee.

According to the Clan Pringle Association, the dated stone was removed to nearby Torwoodlee. In 1788 James Pringle, ninth laird of Torwoodlee, sold Bowland and bought the lands of Buckholm and William Law, bringing them into another branch of the Pringle family.

A tower, a gateway and a changing home

The tower was built of rubble stone with dressed stone around its openings. Historic Environment Scotland describes three storeys and an attic, with a projecting wing. The vaulted cellar had its own entrance and apparently no internal connection to the upper rooms; the first-floor entrance was originally reached by an external timber stair.

The surviving south wall of the barmkin, or defended courtyard, contains a carefully moulded round-arched gateway. A later two-storey addition on the south side shows how the house was adapted after its defensive origins. HES records the site as scheduled monument SM8715; the tower became ruinous in the twentieth century.