Rattenraw Bastle, Otterburn (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Rochester.
In the historic county of Northumberland.
Modern Authority of Northumberland.
1974 county of Northumberland.
Medieval County of Northumberland.

OS Map Grid Reference: NY85099526
Latitude 55.25126° Longitude -2.23607°

Rattenraw Bastle, Otterburn has been described as a certain Bastle, and also as a Pele Tower but is rejected as such.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

Description

The north west and north east walls of the tower stand to a max height of 1.5m on the interior, 2.5m on the exterior. There are no traces of the other two sides. The walls are of massive stones, and indicate an original thickness of approx 1.6m. The tower was approx 8.5m long east-west, and 7m wide north-south. The remains are now incorporated into a field stone dyke. The site is at approx 570ft above OD and commands the valley of the River Rede to the north and south east. The Rattenraw Burn provides some natural defence upon the west and north sides at a distance of 20m. The open moorland to the west rises gently. There is no evidence for dating, but pele towers in Northumberland are usually medieval or late medieval (F1 ASP 13-JUL-1956).
The north west wall has now partially collapsed, otherwise as described. From the existing remains it is impossible to decide whether the building was a tower or a bastle (F2 DS 08-OCT-1970).
No architectural features survive (F3 PFR 05-JUL-1990).
Walls built of massive roughly-coursed rubble. North-east of the present farmhouse parts of two walls of a bastle are incorporated into a later field wall. Each wall is about 8.5m long and has particularly impressive roughly-coursed masonry, on the outer face only (Grundy 1987). (Northumberland HER)

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 17171.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) N8158.

Books
- Dodds, John F., 1999, Bastions and Belligerents (Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Publishing) p. 336
  Salter, Mike, 1997, The Castles and Tower Houses of Northumberland (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 119 (slight)
  Rowland, T.H., 1987 (reprint1994), Medieval Castles, Towers, Peles and Bastles of Northumberland (Sandhill Press) p. 52
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 359
  Graham, Frank, 1976, The Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Frank Graham) p. 305
  Ramm, H.G., McDowall, R.W. and Mercer, E., 1970, Shielings and Bastles (London: HMSO) p. 90 No. 58
  Long, B., 1967, Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) p. 148
Periodical Articles
- Christopherson, R., 2011, 'Northumberland bastles: origin and distribution' Medieval Settlement Research Vol. 26 p. 21-33 (listed in appendix)
  Graham, A., 1945-6, 'Notes on Some Northumbrian 'Peles' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Vol. 80 p. 37-43 (mention - dismissed as a tower) online copy
  Hadcock, R.N., 1939, 'A map of mediaeval Northumberland and Durham' Archaeologia Aeliana (ser4) Vol. 16 p. 148-218 esp 167
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Grundy, J., 1987, The Historic Buildings of the Northumberland National Park ROC31

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

Data >	PastScape	County HER
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio