Kirkhope

About Kirkhope

Kirkhope Tower was originally built in the sixteenth century by the Douglas owners of the Ettrick Valley. It is a very typical Border Pele Tower and similar to Smailholm. It was owned for a time by the Cranstouns before coming into the ownership of the Scotts of Harden – ancestors of Sir Walter Scott. The tower fell into disrepair in the eighteenth century and became a ruin. It was carefully restored in the late twentieth century and used as a private house. It is Catergory A listed as a building of historical and architectural significance. It is not open to the public.
Kirkhope was well known to Ogilvie and he wrote this, one of his longer poems about the Tower. Clearly it was ruinous when he was writing about it. Ogilvie’s poems are usually noted for an apparent simplicity of rhythm and rhyme – not this one, Kirkhope Tower.