Harewalls Bastle, Corsenside

Description

Farmhouse, formerly bastle house; and attached farmbuildings. House late C16/ early C17, altered C18 and C19. Farmbuildings C18. Random rubble with massive quoins and boulder plinth for house; coursed stone for farmbuildings. Welsh slate roof. 2-storey, 3-bay house with later outshut to rear and 2-storey farmbuilding attached to left. Walls of house c 4 feet thick. Almost central later doorway and C19 sash windows. Blocked original bastle upper door above and slightly left of door. Blocked original bastle ground-floor door in byre on left return, visible also in fireplace inside. Interior has old beams visible throughout ground floor.
Farmbuildings to left have 3 byres on ground-floor with plain surrounds to doors; and granary above with stone outside stair to rear. In front, platform of massive stone slabs. (Listed Building Report)

Harewalls is on the north side of the valley of the Lisles Burn, 2km east of East Woodburn. The farmhouse is a remodelled bastle. The bastle measures 12.1m by 7m externally, and is built of massive roughly squared blocks with megalithic quoins; the walls are said to be 4ft 6ins (1.35m) thick. The byre doorway, now blocked and only visible inside an adjacent byre, is set centrally in the west end; it is square headed, with a slightly rounded edge to the jambs and lintel. There is a blocked basement slit vent in the centre of the east end, with a possible first floor loop above. The present doorway, set east of centre in the south wall, has upright blocks of late 18th or early 19th century character in the jambs; the ground floor windows on either side have similar surrounds, whilst the taller first floor windows have alternating block surrounds, presumably of later 19th century date. Between the upper windows are the remains of the original first floor doorway (east jamb, sill and lower block of west jamb) and, to the east of this, a unique keyhole shaped gunloop cut through a single block c.0.65m high and 0.35m wide, also blocked. The western part of the outshut, on the north of the house, is of large squared stone of 18th century character; the eastern part is rendered, and is probably relatively recent. The interior of the house was not seen; there are said to be no old features exposed (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)