Bastles

From the late 16th or beginning of the 17th century these settlements become associated with a distinctive type of fortified farmhouse known as a bastle. There are numerous examples of these two storey stone dwellings in Tarsetdale, with some settlements, notably Gatehouse (with perhaps 5 examples!) and Black Middens, containing two or more.

Typically livestock were accommodated in ground floor accessed by a single stoutly barred doorway and often featuring a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The proprietor and his family occupied the upper floor, its doorway accessed via a removable ladder which was usually replaced by a flight of stone steps added to the outside of the building when conditions improved later in the 17th century.

The windows were generally small - though large enough to shoot out of - and protected by iron bars, whilst the door again could be secured by stout timber drawbars. In addition to Black Middens and Gatehouse, six other bastles survive in the upper valley alone, at the Comb, Hill House, Waterhead, Shilla Hill (originally perhaps Starr Head or Starheyd), Highfield, Boghead (also known as Corbie Castle and Barty's Pele), with others inferred at Redheugh and Sidwood, on the basis of documentary evidence, whilst further examples, such as one to the north of High Boughthill, Burnbank and Burnmouth, have been identified lower down the valley (cf. Ramm et al. 1970, 91-92; Lax 1999).

Harbottle and Newman estimate that the incidence of such buildings was one in every four or five settlements (1973, 146). However more have since been discovered since they wrote and this figure may be an underestimate, particularly in Upper Tarsetdale, where their incidence appears exceptionally dense.

Picture : Gatehouse South Bastle