DescriptionHouse, late C16 or early C17 adjacent bastles, altered and enlarged. C18 left rear wing; right wing built and main block enlarged and remodelled 1835-40. Rubble and squared stone with ashlar dressings; slate roofs. Main block with parallel adjacent rear wings, lower left wing. 2 storeys, 2 and 6 bays. French door in left bay of main block, which has 2-light small-paned casements (some blocked) in raised and chamfered surrounds, that in second bay under a head with open scrolled pediment holding fleur-de-lys. In left section 3-light chamfered stone-mullioned casements, with diamond leading, under scrolled open pediments, with central rose, on first floor. Blocked bastle door between has flattened Tudor-arched lintel with panel: G & C B, 1668 (George and Cecila Bacon). Blocked door and small window below. In right return 2-light mullioned windows, some lights blocked. Right rear wing has similar windows. Left rear wing has door in Gibbs surround and windows with flat stone mullions in raised surrounds. Rear of main block has door at left and 12-pane sash above under reset scrolled pediment. Stacks at gable ends and on ridge, 5 with paired diagonal shafts.
Interior: bastle part has hearth corbels on east wall. Another concealed bastle within main block retains thick rear wall. (Listed Building Report)
Once the old manor-house, where the Earl of Derwentwater took temporary refuge prior to joining the adherents of the Stuart cause c.1715 (Tomlinson 1902).
A two storied gabled house composed in the main of undressed stores with modern pointing, and bearing a stone inscribed B.G.S. and dated 1668. Extensive alterations and additions have been made to the original structure including the erection of a new block on the eastern side-with a projecting northern wing. Two upper windows in the west block have mouldings showing a rose and thistle motif. The house is owned and occasionally occupied by Colonel M A Bell of Bransley Hall, York who was not available for consultation. No additional information could be obtained from the gardener.
Mounted on a modern stone base set in the front lawn, is a Roman altar which once occupied the position of a quoin stone at Staward Tower. It was removed to its present position c.1950 (F1 DAD 02-NOV-1956).
At first glance the house appears in an early Victorian Tudor style, but closer inspection shows a more complex history. At the west end is a bastle; the main block, adjoining this, is largely of 1835-40 but incorporates another bastle; at the rear of this is an early 18th century wing, with a parallel wing to the east of the main block, dating to the 1835-40 phase.
The bastle measures c.11.3m by 8.1m externally, with walls of coursed rubble c.0.75m thick.
Most of the early features of the bastle are on the south elevation. A blocked basement doorway set east of centre, apparently with a segmental arched head cut into a monolithic lintel, is just discernible through climbing plants; east of this is a 19th century window with a raised surround. At first floor level there is a roughly central blocked square headed doorway with a chamfered surround and a sunk gable topped panel on its lintel with the inscription G B C 1668 (George Bacon, who married Cecilia Robson, was a local mine owner who died in 1670).
On either side of the doorway is a three-light mullioned window, with a raised moulded surround, beneath a scrolled open pediment; the western window has a central rose and the eastern a bunch of grapes.
The lower part of the western gable end (with a greenhouse) is plastered and the upper is of coursed small rubble; the moulded kneelers and coping are of 19th century date. The rear (north) wall shows various 19th century openings; at first floor level is one blocked window retaining a chamfered lintel, and just below the eaves what appears to be a low rectangular window, also probably with a chamfered surround, again now blocked. Internally the basement of the bastle is now divided into three principal rooms; there are no pre-19th century features except for a pair of old hearth corbels at the east end, perhaps a small wall locker at the west end. A boxed in spine beam seems unlikely to be original; it may be contemporary with a large late 18th or 19th century fireplace at the west end. At first floor level no early features survive. The 18th century rear wing has an interesting doorway (now inside a later porch) at the south end of its west wall, with a 'Gibbs' type surround in which a moulded architrave is interrupted by alternating raised blocks. On the north side of the eastern extension of the main block a swan-necked pediment, of the same type as those over the first floor windows on the south side of the bastle, has been reset above a 19th century window. The north wall of the main block of the house, now entirely internal, is 0.9m thick.
The bastle is rather unusual in that its two southern windows have considerably more architectural pretensions than one would expect to find with a building of this type. The '1668' date is also rather late for a bastle in this area. There are two possible explanations:
i: the bastle is an early 17th century building remodelled in 1668. Looking at the south elevation, it is clear that there is better squared stone in the upper sections of the wall, which could relate to such remodelling.
ii: the bastle is a late example, only built (as an extension to an existing house now only represented by the thick internal wall) in 1668; its relatively thin walls might tie in with this dating.
A third possibility might be that the bastle is a late example, but that its elaborate windows have been brought from elsewhere (the main block?), perhaps even as late as the 19th century. An account in the Allendale churchwardens' accounts suggest this was a bastle by reference to a 'room above stairs with a cow house under'. Several puzzles remain. One is a total absence of bastle type angle quoins; there are no quoins at all at the west end. One explanation might be that this end wall has been entirely rebuilt, possibly after an adjacent structure was removed (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)
