Newbiggin Bastle, Hollinghill (The Gatehouse Record)

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

OS Map Grid Reference: NZ03629412
Latitude 55.24113° Longitude -1.94440°

Newbiggin Bastle, Hollinghill has been described as a Bastle although is doubtful that it was such.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

Description

Newbiggin Farmhouse may have its origins in the late C16 or early C17. One of its walls is 1.3m thick and some have claimed it is a bastle. Even though the building has been examined closely it has not been possible to confirm this yet. (Keys to the Past)

Newbiggin Farm lies in a fairly remote location on the north side of the Font valley, above the Fontburn Reservoir. The house is rather surprisingly listed in Ramm et al 1970 as 'including a partition wall 4ft thick, now partly masked by a chimney breast, which is said to have been the end wall of a bastle'. The house is of four irregular bays, all two storeyed, but with the western bay considerably lower than the remainder. The wall in question is 1.3m thick and forms the west end of the taller three-bay part. No old features are exposed and there are no clear indications of the wall, or of bastle period fabric, externally. A set of quoins further east, in the upper half of the wall only, seem to relate to the 18th century(?) heightening of the eastern two bays of the range (which are set at a slightly skew angle to the western part) before the third bay was heightened. On the north, what may be an earlier quoin facing in the opposite direction (ie forming the north east angle of a building on the site of the western bay) is visible below the quoining in the upper part of the wall (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 21528.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) N10801.

Books
- Dodds, John F., 1999, Bastions and Belligerents (Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Publishing) p. 197
  Salter, Mike, 1997, The Castles and Tower Houses of Northumberland (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 119 (slight)
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. lxviii
  Ramm, H.G., McDowall, R.W. and Mercer, E., 1970, Shielings and Bastles (London: HMSO) p. 89 no. 50
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 1 Alnwick District p. 34

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