Clarghyll Hall

Description

Large house of several periods: C16 bastle, heightened and extended to north in late C17 for Nicholas Whitfield; further extended to north for Thomas Whitfield mid/late C18. Top floor of tower, east wing, and north study/chapel (incorporating remains of another bastle) added c1860 (date on tower's north gable.) Coursed squared rubble with quoins; C19 work of ashlar. North wing has stone-flagged roof with stone mid and end chimneys; C19 roofs of welsh slate with corbie-stepped gables and end chimney to tower; 3 gables on north side of east wing with castellated octagonal chimney to south side. L-shaped with 3-storey tower to left of centre, 2-storey north wing and projecting east wing of one tall storey, all with undercrofts. Tower undercroft retains original semicircular-headed door to bastle, with draw-bar slot and pivot-holes, now opening off C17 cross-passage. Heavy oak beams carry stone-flagged floor above. (Listed Building Report)

Comments

Two C16 bastles of exactly the same width and on exactly the same alignment now joined together by later buildings. However these later buildings must be replacement for buildings contemporary with the two bastles, otherwise they could not be so well matched and aligned so originally this was a single bastle complex. The southern bastle must have been the first built and was originally freestanding, as its brye door (with a deep draw bar) is at its northern end. This has been heightened to look like a Scottish style tower. The Whitfields were really gentry status, although the Clarhyll brach was a junior branch of a Northumberland family. If, as Gatehouse suspects there was a building between the two bastles from the date of the construction of the second bastle then this may have been a timber hall making this building look like a gentry status house between two tower-like 'chamber' blocks, although the use of ground floors of these bastles as bryes should be well noted. The bastles were certainly later developed into a fine grand house.