Hadrian Cottages, Wall (The Gatehouse Record)

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

OS Map Grid Reference: NY91606892
Latitude 55.01465° Longitude -2.13281°

Hadrian Cottages, Wall has been described as a certain Bastle, and also as a certain Urban Defence.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This is a Grade 2 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Bastle house, late C16 or early C17, repodelled mid C19. Large coursed rubble with tooled dressings; Welsh slate roof, with upper parts of end stacks rebuilt in yellow brick. 2 storeys, 3 bays. Central pair of vertical-panelled doors in stop-chamfered surrounds, and painted imitation window in blocked original doorway above; 6-pane sashes to left, 12-pane shortened sashes to right. (Listed Building Report)

Solitary form bastle, with byre entrance and first floor door in long wall. Present state - house (Ryder 1990).
A pair of cottages on the west side of Front Street to the north of Hadrian Hotel. The main body of the building, running parallel to the street, is a rectangular block c.13m by 6.7m externally, with walls of coursed roughly squared stone; the quoins are quite large but coursed in with the adjacent walling; the front wall is 0.9m thick and the other walls apparently similarly thick. The openings are all of 19th century character; the pair of front doors have stop chamfered surrounds; above there is a boarded-up window, with sections of a straight joint visible on either side; it is not clear whether one or both represent a former upper doorway. Whilst the wall fabric is a little unusual for a bastle and there are no clearly diagnostic features visible, the substantial wall thicknesses make it difficult to see this as anything other than a defensible house (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1156687
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) N8589.

Books
- Grint, Julia, 2008, Bastles an introduction to the bastle houses of Northumberland (Hexham: Ergo Press) p. 137-45
  Ryder, Peter, 2004, 'Towers and bastles in Northumberland National Park' in Frodsham, P., Archaeology in the Northumberland National Park (CBA Research report 136) p. 262-271
Periodical Articles
- Christopherson, R., 2011, 'Northumberland bastles: origin and distribution' Medieval Settlement Research Vol. 26 p. 21-33 (listed in appendix)
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Ryder, P.F., 1994-5, Towers and Bastles in Northumberland Part 4 Tynedale District Vol. 2 p. 153
  Ryder, P.F., 1990, Northumberland Bastles Survey Unpublished p. 11

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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.

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*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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