Ancient tree · Medieval
Capon Tree
Scottish Borders
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
- Near Jedburgh
Scotland · Region
Ancient places in Scottish Borders
40 places in Scottish Borders, from the deepest prehistory to the medieval world.
-
-
Fortified place · Iron Age
Cademuir Hill Fort
Scottish Borders
Two Iron Age forts crown the Cademuir ridge. The larger, Cademuir I, on the summit, enclosed about 2.25 ha within a single 3 m thick stone wall and…
- Near Peebles
- 2.3 km from car park
- Some walking
-
Building or ruin · Medieval
Dryburgh Abbey
Scottish Borders
Dryburgh Abbey was nominally founded on 10 November (Martinmas) 1150 under an agreement between Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland, and the Pr…
- Near St Boswells
- 363 metres from car park
-
Fortified place · Iron Age
Edin's Hall Broch, Fort and Settlement
Scottish Borders
The hilltop on the northeast slope of Cockburn Law was first fortified in the pre-Roman Iron Age, when double ramparts and ditches enclosed an oval…
- Near Duns
- 1.8 km from car park
- Some walking
-
Fortified place · Iron Age
Eildon Hill North Hillfort
Scottish Borders
Excavation has shown the hillfort was occupied by 1000 BC, in the Bronze Age, with ramparts built and rebuilt in three phases. The 296 hut platform…
- Near Melrose
- 1.7 km from car park
- Some walking
-
Carved stone · Prehistoric
Hownam Rings
Scottish Borders
C. M. Piggott's 1948 excavation at Hownam Rings became a landmark in the archaeology of northern Britain. It produced the 'Hownam model' (or 'Howna…
- Near Hownam
- 1.2 km from car park
- Some walking
-
Carved stone · Medieval
Jedburgh Abbey
Scottish Borders
In 1118, before his accession to the Scottish throne, Prince David established a foundation of Augustinian canons at Jedburgh. It rose from priory…
- Near Jedburgh
- 1 min walk from car park
-
Building or ruin · Medieval
Kelso Abbey
Scottish Borders
Kelso Abbey was founded at Roxburgh in 1128 by Tironensian monks from Tiron, near Chartres in France. The community had first entered Scotland c. 1…
- Near Kelso
- 2 min walk from car park
-
Building or ruin · Medieval
Melrose Abbey
Scottish Borders
St Mary's Abbey, Melrose was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks at the request of King David I of Scotland — the first Cistercian abbey in Scotlan…
- Near Melrose
- 2 min walk from car park
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Smailholm Tower
Scottish Borders
Smailholm Tower is a peel tower atop the crag of Lady Hill, around five miles west of Kelso in the Scottish Borders. It was built in the 15th or ea…
- Near Smailholm
- 1 min walk from car park
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Cessford Castle
Scottish Borders
It was the principal stronghold of the Kerr family, among the most notorious of the Border Reivers, and its massive walls survive as a striking rec…
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Drochil Castle
Scottish Borders
An ambitious, never-completed retirement palace of Regent Morton, whose rare double-tenement plan makes it one of the more unusual late-sixteenth-c…
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Elibank Castle
Scottish Borders
A late-16th-century Borders fortified house whose Italianate terraced gardens, laid out after the Union of the Crowns, were counted among the grand…
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Fast Castle
Scottish Borders
A dramatically sited Borders stronghold whose repeated changes of hand trace the long violence of the Anglo-Scottish frontier, and whose ruins are…
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Fatlips Castle
Scottish Borders
A sixteenth-century Border peel tower whose story runs from the region's turbulent reiving past through to its Victorian revival as a shooting lodg…
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Floors Castle
Scottish Borders
Floors Castle is a Category A listed house whose Georgian core by William Adam and romantic Victorian remodelling by William Henry Playfair togethe…
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Greenknowe Tower
Scottish Borders
A rare, largely intact survival of a small Borders laird's tower house that still retains its original iron yett and datestone, offering a vivid pi…
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Hermitage Castle
Scottish Borders
A brooding Border stronghold whose walls witnessed centuries of frontier warfare, treachery and the famous ride of Mary, Queen of Scots.
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Neidpath Castle
Scottish Borders
A well-preserved medieval L-plan tower house above the Tweed, Neidpath binds the Fraser and Hay families and carries centuries of Borders history,…
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Roxburgh Castle
Scottish Borders
One of the most fiercely contested strongholds of the Anglo-Scottish frontier, and the place where King James II of Scotland was killed by his own…
-
Fortified place · Medieval
Traquair House
Scottish Borders
Claimed to be the oldest continually inhabited house in Scotland, its walls trace an unbroken line from a medieval royal hunting seat through the S…
More places in Scottish Borders
Briefer entries — recorded and worth knowing, with fuller pages to come.
-
Minor monument · Medieval
Dovecot, Ayton Castle
Scottish Borders
Dovecote with HES-listed pre-1800 evidence (1745).
-
Minor monument · Medieval
Dovecot, Kirkgate, Chirnside
Scottish Borders
Dovecote with HES-listed pre-1800 evidence (16th century).
-
Minor monument · Medieval
Market Cross, Market Square, Melrose
Scottish Borders
Mercat cross with HES-listed pre-1800 evidence (1645).
- Easy path
-
Minor monument · Medieval
The Old Market Cross, Greenlaw
Scottish Borders
Mercat cross with HES-listed pre-1800 evidence (1609).
- Easy path
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
No places match those filters.