Scotsman Walking Wearing Kilt By Torwoodlee Tower On History Visit To Borders Scotland

Tour Scotland short 4K Autumn travel video of a Scotsman wearing a kilt and Sporran and walking by trees and Torwoodlee Tower on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit and trip to the Scottish Borders, Britain, United Kingdom. The Pringle family first established a stronghold at Torwoodlee in the early 1500s. However, life in the lawless Scottish Borders was incredibly volatile. In 1568, a devastating force of roughly 300 Border Reivers, composed of the Elliot and Armstrong clans viciously attacked the estate. They plundered over £1,000 in silver, money, and horses, brutally murdered the Laird, George Pringle, and burned the original tower to the ground. In 1601, George Pringle, the 4th Laird, built the Torwoodlee Tower whose ruins still stand today. Crucially, its design reflected changing political times. Anticipating that King James VI of Scotland would soon inherit the English throne, which occurred in 1603, and bring peace to the border country, Pringle designed a building focused more on luxury and prestige than heavy warfare. George Pringle, the 6th Laird, was a staunch Protestant. When in 1663 the Earl of Argyll escaped imprisonment from Edinburgh Castle following the Test Act, George sheltered him at Torwoodlee, providing food, money, and a guide to flee south. This act made Pringle a wanted man. In 1684 implicated in further anti popery plotting against the Stuart monarchy, George Pringle was forced to flee to Holland, and the Crown temporarily confiscated the Torwoodlee lands. He returned after the Revolution of 1688 to reclaim his estate. As the need for defensive fortresses entirely faded, the family abandoned the tower in 1783 to move into the newly constructed, grand Georgian property nearby, known as Torwoodlee House. Left to the elements, the tower gradually fell into a romantic ruin. Clan Pringle is an ancient and historic Lowland Scottish family deeply rooted in the Scottish Borders, particularly within the Tweed Valley and Gala Water areas. Unlike the typical Highland clans structured around remote mountain territories and fierce clan chiefs, the Pringles were a prominent Border kindred, a family of landed gentry, royal servants, and defenders of the volatile Anglo Scottish frontier. The surname Pringle did not originate from the word pilgrim, despite a popular historical theory linked to their heraldry. Instead, it is a habitational name derived from Hoppringle or Hoppringill, an old landholding in the parish of Stow, located north of Galashiels. The name comes from the Middle English hop, meaning a small, enclosed valley, paired with an Old Norse personal name. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. Find things to see and do in Scotland where you are always welcome. Meteorological Autumn or Fall is different from standard and astronomical Autumn and begins September 1 and ends November 30 All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs