Middle Row Bastle, Kirkhaugh

Description

The present house consists of a two storeyed block, c.10.7m by 6.4m, with a lower outshut on the north east and an outbuilding 11.6m long at the north west end. The house itself may be a bastle derivative type; its present openings are mostly 19th century but there are traces of a blocked doorway at first floor level in the south east end, and a blocked window above the present doorway in the south west wall. The angle quoins, best seen at the southern angle, are quite heavy side alternate rather than face alternate form.
Reset above the window of a single storey outbuilding at the south east end is a lintel inscribed 'NT 1681: OCTOBER 6'; beneath has been added 'SW.RB 1867'; the dates may be those of the construction and remodelling of the house. The outshut towards the road has a blocked doorway, and seems unlikely to be later than the mid 18th century. The north west end wall of the house, however, represents the south east end of an earlier house, the north east wall of which also survives in the outbuilding (now forming an internal wall between the outbuilding and a 19th century extension). The quoining of the southern corner of this building, with elongate roughly shaped slabs, is clearly visible with, just below the eaves, a reused head or sill of a small opening with a roll moulded surround. Internally, the end wall of the earlier building shows a central recess, presumably the rear arch of a blocked doorway, with above it (at first floor levels) a pair of blocked wall cupboards and a blocked opening near the centre of the wall with a roughly projecting area of stonework below it. In the north east wall of the house are several features of interest, all at what was once first floor level; from south east to north west these are a blocked window, a square headed recess containing a stone bowl or slopstone, with projecting sill and a stone spout projecting from the external face of the wall, a window with a stout timber frame and central bar, set towards the centre of the wall, and a blocked wall cupboard.
The other two walls of the outbuilding, and the pent roofed extension on its north east side, are clearly of 19th century date; the extension is not shown on the c.1860 OS map. The earlier building at Middle Row has certainly been a first floor house of bastle or bastle derivative type. The long continuity of this type of building in this area makes dating uncertain, but it probably falls within the first half of the 17th century. The reset '1681' datestone seems more likely to have come from the present house; the supplementary inscription suggests that both outbuilding and house were presumably remodelled in 1867.
The slopstone and projecting spout are typical bastle features; this is probably one of the best preserved examples (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)