The Tower

2001 marked the quincentennary of William Hoppringill coming to Torwoodlee and, to mark this milestone in the Family History, the Pringles of Torwoodlee have designed this website and have launched a world-wide campaign to raise money to stabilise Torwoodlee Tower for the next 500 years.

The ruins of a Scottish mansion of the beginning of the seventeenth century, near a modern (1783!) mansion of the same name, on the right bank of the Gala Water about 2 miles north-west of Galashiels. There was an older keep which was sacked by the Elliots and Armstrongs in 1568 and the existing old house was erected by George Pringle in 1601. The current Torwoodlee House contains a stone bearing the date 1601 with the initials GP and MS on either side.

The Tower consisted of two sides of a courtyard and was surrounded by walls which enclosed a garden. The portion which remains is of an elongated form, being about 70 feet long by 22 feet wide; a circular tower projecting from the front contained the entrance doorway on the ground floor, with a panel for a coat of arms above it. The circular tower seems also to have contained a staircase as high as the second floor, at which stage it is corbelled out to the square. The ground floor is divided into three apartments, one of which was probably the kitchen; the principle rooms, which had large windows, occupied the first floor, above which there was a second floor containing bedrooms.

This is a fair example of the style of mansion which, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, was superceding the more traditional plans; the ground floor is still vaulted and provided with loopholes for defence, and there is also a shot-hole under the sill of the upper tower window; otherwise the military aspect gives way to one of an opener and more peaceful character.