Low Alwinton : The Church Complex

Low Alwinton, both today and as depicted in the 19th century maps, essentially comprises no more than the parish church, the adjacent parsonage and a few cottages. As noted above the parish church stood on its present site from at least the 12th century onward. The site of the vicarage described in 1541 as a 'lytle bastell house of stone' (Bates 1891, 44; cf. 7. Selected Sources and Surveys no. 4) probably lay near to the church, perhaps on or close to the site of the present parsonage.

The use of the term 'bastle house' in the context of the Bowes and Ellerker's 1541 Border survey probably implies something rather more substantial than the fortified farmhouses that are so common in Redesdale, North Tynedale and upper Coquetdale.

Bastle houses, stronghouses or stonehouses, as they are sometimes labelled, could represent quite large structures in plan a more elongate rectangle than most of the earlier tower-houses and as many three or four storeys high, including an attic chamber, and sometimes possessing a small gabled stair wing protecting the doorway (Pevsner et al. 2001, 64). Examples include Doddington and Akeld bastles.

However in this case the bastle is described as 'little' and a two-storey structure might be envisaged, akin to The Stonehouse at Naworth Park in north-east Cumbria or the even more modest Low Cleughs bastle in Redesdale (cf. Ramm et al. 1970, 77-78 (no.15), 85 (no. 36); Carlton & Rushworth 2004). Previous phases of vicarage may well have stood on the same site as the bastle house.