Black Middens Bastle house

Black Middens Bastle house

In the isolated and remote Redesdale Valley just past Tarset lies this partly renovated ruin of a Bastle house.
There are no modern amenities out here and apart from the blacktop on the small road not much else has changed in this lonely part of Northumberland.

Housty Bastle house

Hunting Bastle houses is one of our favourite occupations. These old fortified houses often date back to the early 17th century or earlier. They are peculiar to the Anglo Scottish borders and are a reminder of the Border Reiver days and how the people living here had to protect their possessions and very often their lives.

The more traditional farm house had tended to be the house itself and then alongside a byre for the animals. With a Bastle house this changed. The animals lived on a ground floor and the people above.

Typically there would be no stairway to the first floor, just a trapdoor and a ladder which could be pulled up. The Walls and door would be very strong.

Housty Bastle house lies in the Allendale valley. Technically this is a little further south than would be expected but in reality the only restrictions on the range of Bastle houses was the area which was terrorised by the Border Reivers.

Housty itself has been dated back to 1625.

Other references

Housty Bastle house. More pictures.

Nine Dargues Bastle house

One of the distinguishing features of a Bastle house is the substantial stone lintels and door posts used for their great strength. This is particularly seen at Nine Dargues bastle house. Look at the size of the stones used in the semi circular megalithic lintel over the byre doorway below

Then this tunnel for the draw bar.

Unfortunately Bastle houses are rarely well reserved and for Nine dargues the roof and the upper story have collapsed.

The Bastle house has been dated to the late 16th or early 17th century. The walls are just under 1 metre thick and although it is little more than a ruin now it was in fact inhabited up and into the 20th century.

Other sources:-

Nine Dargues - more photographs