Low Stead Bastles

Description

Farmhouse and attached byres. Farmhouse and byre to left are bastle houses, late C16 or early C17. Windows and doors altered C18 and again mid C19. Byre to right early C19. Massive random rubble with dressed stone surrounds. Welsh slate roofs. Walls of bastles 4 ft thick. House 3 irregular bays. Plank door in middle bay. Windows are diamond-paned iron casements. Upper windows smaller. Right window is the partly-blocked original upper door to bastle. House walls raised C18 or C19 by c 2 ft. Left byre, probably early extension to original bastle, has plank door and -slatted window on each floor; upper door reached by outside stone stair. Byre to right has central door with alternating jambs; and two -slatted windows on 1st floor. Later C18 single-storey extensions to rear. Gabled roofs with flat copings and kneelers to bastles. 2 stone gable stacks. Interior has old beams on ground floor. (Listed Building Report)

At crest of steep slope on east side of Blacka Burn, extended bastle, now house. Phase I bastle, 11.2 x 7.1m externally; phase II extension at west end, 6.5 x 7.1m. Large rubble with megalithic roughly-cut quoins, with 19th century heightening in coursed rubble; 18th century byre at east end and single storey north wing. Walls of phase I bastle 1.15m thick, of phase II part 1.3-1.4m. South wall of phase I part has 18th century chamfered doorways and late 18th century/early 19th century windows. Traces of earlier openings, some of post-bastle date. Phase II part has late 18th century/early 19th century doorway and 19th century windows on south; on north ground floor window is set in blocked doorway of uncertain date. Interior: 18th century beams to first floor. Phase I byre doorway in centre of west end seen when fireplace remodelled a few years ago (Ryder, P F 03-JUL-90 Field Investigation; Ryder 1990).
16th or early 17th century, with 19th century byre. The present house and the byre to the left are both bastle houses; one much smaller than the other, but joined together. They have walls 4 feet thick. The present house is three irregular bays. It has a boarded door and extremely pretty 19th century diamond-paned casement windows. The upstairs right window is the partly-blocked upper doorway to the bastle. The walls were raised slightly in the 18th or 19th century. The byre to the left was also a bastle, probably an early extension of the original building. It has an 18th century stone stair. The byre to the right is 19th century. Inside, the house has original close set oak beams on the ground floor (Grundy 1987). (Northumberland HER)