The Buildings Of Harbottle Village By P F Ryder

The former Presbyterian Church stands at the west end of the single street of Harbottle village, on the south side of the road. In plan it is a plain rectangle, constructed of roughly-coursed and roughly-squared stone with tooled and margined dressings. The gable front has a two-centred doorway with a large window of three stepped lancets, with open spandrels, above and a roundel in the gable, above the doorway is a table with the date '1854' and on either side a large lancet window. The gable is topped by a corbelled-out octagonal turret with a swept stone spire. The side elevations - the eastern with a series of buttresses - each have five lancets and the south end gable carries a spiky finial. Interior not seen.

The Village Street

On the north side of the street many of the houses are of early 19th century date, and built of good-quality squared stone, whitish in colour, with small-paned sash windows. Near the west end Waterloo House has a projecting two-storeyed porch with a segmental chamfered archway.

Then comes the three-storeyed Cherry Tree Cottage , its added top floor having half dormers and the initials 'GRT' and date '1868'; the central door has an attractive patterned overlight. Next door is Plum Tree Cottage, rather more altered, and then the three-bay Border House, an unaltered front age with 16-pane sashes and an old insurance plate above the door. In the centre of the village is the Star Inn, another three-bay house with 16-pane sashes, with to the west of it a fine drinking foundation of 1880 with an inscription hymning the virtues of Mrs Clennell of Harbottle Castle.

To the east of the inn are another pair of early 19th-century houses, Fern Lea and Bracken Lea and then, set well back from the street, Harbottle First School, an excellent Victorian school building, a symmetrical composition consisting of a single-storeyed range with a projecting centre bearing the inscription 'NATIONAL SCHOOL 1854'; its windows have elliptical-arched heads, reminiscent of 16th Century Cumbria back, and there are octagonal chimney stacks.

At the east end of the street is the Village Hall, a two-storeyed block set at right angles to the street with a big Gothic window in a raised stone surround, lighting the hall on the first floor.

Picture: Harbottle First School