Hawkshaw
Ancestral family home of the Porteous family on the River Tweed just two miles southwest of Tweedsmuir in Peeblesshire, Scotland, dating from at least 1439.A fortified tower stood here for hundreds of years, although nothing remains of it now, its site being marked with a cairn which plays host to a gathering of Porteous family members from all over the world every five years.
The tower was probably one of a series of so-called Peel towers, small fortified keeps built along the Scottish Borders, intended as watch towers where signal fires could be lit to warn of approaching danger.
A line of these towers was built in the 1430s across the Tweed valley from Berwick to its source, as a response to the dangers of invasion from the English Borders. Hawkshaw was one of over two dozen of these in Peeblesshire alone.