Kirkhaugh Farm Bastle 1

Description

Solitary bastle 11.6m long x 6.5m wide, side walls 0.9m thick, end wall 0.95m thick. Byre entrance in gable end. First floor has beamed ceiling. First floor door in long wall (Ryder 1986).
The farm of Kirkhaugh lies low on the west side of the valley of the South Tyne. The farmhouse is dated 1851 and apparently replaced the bastle (Kirkhaugh I), now a farmbuilding at the east end of the range on the south side of the farmyard.
The bastle measures 11.3m by 6.5m externally, with walls of heavy rubble. The byre doorway, now inside the adjacent barn, is set centrally in the west end, and has a rough segmental pointed arch, with a continuous chamfer; there is a drawbar tunnel in the north jamb. A second doorway set centrally in the east end is an insertion, although perhaps of the 18th century; three windows in the south wall look more recent. Above the internal lintel of this doorway are three corbels carrying the hearth above; other slabs, also part of the substructure of the hearth, project from the external wall face at this point. A marked set-back on the side walls (more prominent on the north) marks the original position of the first floor, which has been raised (with some old transverse beams being reused) by c.0.6m.
At first floor level a doorway near the west end of the south wall looks to be recent in its present form; further east are two windows (the eastern reusing the head of a two-light mullioned window), both in a section of wall that appears to have been rebuilt. In the east wall is a window with a stone surround of 18th century character, with holes in the lintel and sill for iron bars. The external face of the north wall is entirely concealed by render; internally there is a narrow splayed recess at the west end that looks like an original loop, with adjacent to it a wider splayed recess, perhaps a rather later window. The fireplace at the east end has a lintel set forward on shaped corbels. An internal set-back on the side walls marks the level of a removed attic floor.
There are two upper cruck roof trusses. The western has its curved blades tenoned into a tie beam of the attic floor, and a collar; in the eastern the tie beam has been sawn away, and replaced by a timber secured by bolts at a rather high level. The blades here have a concave curve (as if reset back to front); their junction with the remaining stubs of the tie is obscured by the masonry of the walls.
Reset in the west wall of the present farmhouse, above the back door, is a lintel said to have come from the bastle, and presumably from the upper doorway. Its soffit is cut to a shallow triangular arch and it bears a sunk panel with the inscription, carved in relief: P(?) W B : 1692 MAY X. This would seem an unusually late date for what appears to be a fairly conventional bastle, although the long continuance of the bastle tradition in this area gives no reason to doubt it (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)

Bastle house, barn and cottage. Late C16 or early C17, altered; and late C18 or early C19. Bastle large irregular rubble, barn and cottage rubble; bastle with C20 asbestos roof; barn and cottage stone slate roof; stone stack on cottage gable. Bastle 2 storeys, irregular. Ground floor C20 windows, 1st floor C20 pitching door, 6-pane fixed window and 12-pane sash with head of 2-light mullioned window above. Barn to left has 2 tiers of slit vents and boarded door, cottage to far left has boarded 1st floor opening. Right return has inserted stable door and heavy corbels, probably for external stack,above. 1st floor 9-pane fixed window in stone surround, pigeon holes with alighting bands to right and left of gable. Rear elevation; bastle obscured by C20 outbuilding; barn has central cart entrance with timber lintel and slit vents, cottage to right has boarded door in stone surround and 6-pane window over. Interior of bastle shows original byre entrance in west wall, with chamfered segmental-pointed arch, hearth corbels over inserted door in east wall. 1st floor has fireplace with lintel carried on corbels and 2 old roof trusses with ogival principals linked by pairs of collars. (Listed Building Report 1985)