Smailholm Tower’s outstanding views over the surrounding countryside gave it a much-needed defensive advantage at a time when border violence was normal.

Smailholm was raided frequently during the Rough Wooing, and attacked during the Bishop’s Wars. But it was also an inspiration for Scotland’s famous writer, Walter Scott.

It is one of the most visually dramatic castles along the Anglo-Scottish border, and stuffed with history. It literally towers above the visitor, evoking awe and amazement that such a structure was built without modern technology.

It changed hands between the Scottish and English many times. It is also a place where a queen rode, where a sheriff starved to death, and perhaps also where ghosts now roam.

Corsbie Tower is a lonely-looking 16th-century ruin in the Scottish Borders. Its broken walls are a window into the lawless nature of southern Scotland in the 1500s. This was the era of the Reivers, families of thieves whose loyalty was to kin rather than country.

This is the story of Mangerton Tower, ancestral seat of the Armstrongs. A place that, although now a broken ruin, once stood at the epicentre of some of the most dramatic and violent episodes in Border history.

Clinging to a sheer headland where the North Sea crashes against the cliffs, the scant ruins of Fast Castle are a place where history, legend, and geography collide.

Once a stronghold of the Home family, Fast Castle is a dramatic reminder of the border’s turbulent past.

Today it's a romantic ruin, but the story of Elibank Castle is fascinating. Built in the final decades of the Border Reivers era, and home to the powerful Murray family, this castle gives us murder, feud, and the story of Muckle-Mouthed Meg.

The ruin of Cardrona Tower sits high on a hillside, surrounded by forest, overlooking the River Tweed. Its stones are broken, its stairway collapsed, and its courtyard long overgrown. Yet here, in this quiet clearing, lies a doorway into one of the most volatile centuries the Borders ever knew.

This fortress was constructed in the 1450s by the Kerrs of Cessford. Notorious and influential Border Reivers, the castle was their main stronghold in a network of fortified houses. Today, Cessford Castle is silent — a broken giant of red stone. But in the 15th and 16th centuries, these walls were alive with politics, treachery… and war.