Cote House

Description

Cote House (NY 475524) stand on the low ground on the W. bank of the River Eden. It cannot be equated with the ordinary bastles but has features in common with them. The building is 91ft long and stands on sloping ground; it contains under a level roof, a two-storey house 43 ft. long and single-storey outbuildings. The original simple straight range 23ft wide has been enlarged by additions to the E, and the house has been thoroughly modernised. The south end is built of large roughly squared and coursed stone and has a very small blocked windows. The other walls, 3 ft. to 3 ft. thick are mostly rendered or masked by additions and no original openings can be identified with certainty but the doorway in the E. wall leading into the old house from the later addition may represent an original entrance, and one of the doorways to the outbuildings may also be original.
In the upper part of the house there are stone corbels which carry the feet of the roof trusses. The trusses themselves are inaccessible about the ceiling. The roof over the old buildings is carried on three trusses one with tie-beam and king post, two with cambered collar beams.
The extent to which the domestic part of the house was confined to the first floor is not now determinable, but it seems likely that the house may have be comparable with The Stonehouse in Naworth East Park. (Perriam and Robinson 1998)

Farmhouse, formerly bastle house. Late C16 or early C17. Large blocks of squared red sandstone to walls, covered with cement rendering at front, green slate roof, rendered brick chimney stacks. 2 storeys, 4 bays with single storeyed extension, built up the slope to the west, but under the same roof: not a typical bastle house. Extremely thick walls, rendered to mask alterations, make it difficult to interpret, but basically as built with C18 and C19 window openings and C19 roof. East gable to river, shows small original windows, now filled, rebuilt upper wall, gable coped with kneeler. Width increased to rear by extension with roof carried over. Doorways between rear extension and original building and between single storeyed extension, probably are original. Windows and doors all C20: single storey extension is whitewashed and internally the roof is carried on three trusses supported by stone corbels, one with tie beam and king post, two with cambered collar beams. Building may have been comparable with The Stonehouse in Naworth East Park. See, R.C.H.M., Shielings & Bastles, 1970. N.B. The compass bearings given by the R.C.H.M. are wrong: for their east read north and south read east. (Listed Building Report)

Comments

Marked as 'Peel Tower (remains of)' on 1:25000 OS map of 1937-61. A peel-house not a pele tower.
The building is actually orientated North-East South-West (in fact NE by E - SW by W) so neither Perriam and Robinson nor the Listed Building Report is correct on orientation.