Ridge End Bastle, Falstone

Description

Bastlehouse. C16 extended by wing to left c.1800. Large random rubble with boulder plinth; Welsh slate roof. c.37 ft. x 21 ft. 2 storeys plus attic, 2 bays. Central doorway in C20 porch. Original ground-floor doorway has roll- moulded surround. Ground floor windows are sashes in late C17 double-chamfered surrounds. On 1st floor late C18 or early C19 windows with renewed sashes. One roll-moulded jamb of original 1st-floor doorway remains above door. Gabled roof with flat coping and banded end stacks.
Attached to left a lower 2-bay extension with sash windows. Attached to left of this a 3-bay stable with granary over.
Interior: walls c.50 inches thick. (Listed Building Report)

A Pele formerly stood at Ridge End (NY 72868589) (MacLauchlan 1867)
Ridge End farmhouse is a converted bastle-house. It still retains the peculiar features of these later type 'strong houses'. Notably the splayed window openings and thick strongly built stone walls (F1 FDC 14-JUL-1956).
The farmhouse is of two periods, the east end being a fortified dwelling, the west end, an 18th/19th century extension. The earlier construction, of massive stonework, three storeys in height and gabled, with walls 1.8m thick, measures overall 11.1m east-west, 7.4m north-south and stands upon a rocky prominence above the confluence of the Smales Burn with the River North Tyne, to the north east. The Burn provides a natural defence upon the south side, and a small tributary flowing down a deep gully on the west side, isolates the site from higher ground in that direction. The position commands the broad valley of the River North Tyne to the north and east. Moulded stones in the east wall bear evidence of an original entrance at first storey level (F2 ASP 20-JUL-1956).
'Bastle-houses', or 'strong-houses' within this county have been attributed to the 15th/16th century (F3 FDC 30-AUG-1956)
There are no traces of the 'splayed window openings' referred to in report of 14/7/56, the only external traces of an original window is a probable jamb 0.8m left of the modern upper right window in the south wall (F5 SA 30-MAR-1977).
Rectangular building 11.23m x 7.35m with side walls 1.5m thick; walls of massive roughly-coursed rubble. South door just west of centre, within 20th century porch, has square head and roll-moulded surround; flanking windows of c.1700 with recessed and chamfered surrounds. Similar window at east end looks like 19th/early 20th century copy. First floor south windows mid-19th century, that east of porch replacing original upper floor door of which roll-moulded west jamb and sill remain visible. East end has 19th century windows to first floor and attic, and central blocked slit at an intermediate level between them. 19th century roof of quite shallow pitch; there is no clear evidence of the attic storey being an addition. No evidence of any openings in north wall. Extension of house and attached farmbuildings to west all mid-19th century (F6 PFR 21-JUN-1990). (Northumberland HER)