Borrowdale Oak Cottage (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Rosthwaite

In the civil parish of Borrowdale.
In the historic county of Cumberland.
Modern Authority of Cumbria.
1974 county of Cumbria.
Medieval County of Cumberland.

OS Map Grid Reference: NY25731476
Latitude 54.52270° Longitude -3.14902°

Borrowdale Oak Cottage has been described as a Bastle but is rejected as such.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This is a Grade 2 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Oak Cottage and adjoining barn II Cottage and adjoining barn. Late C17. Painted rendered walls on cobble plinth under graduated greenslate roof with rebuilt roughcast chimney stacks. Barn of slate rubble and split boulders with large flush slate quoins. 2 storeys, 3 bays with barn to left under common roof. C20 door in plain opening. Sash windows, those on upper floor with glazing bars, and smaller ground-floor fire window to left, all in plain reveals. Barn has plank door under C17 wooden mullioned opening. C19 barn extension to left has slit vents on 2 levels. Interior has C17 built-in panelled court cupboard and upper-floor C17 panelling. (Listed Building Report)

S. Denyer (1985), comments on the house held by the National Trust. She mentions an unpublished report by R. Leech of the Lancaster University Achaeological Unit 1983 on excavations carried out at the house, and includes a plan which shows a 1.5m thick south wall which included a newel stair. There appears to be no other evidence to support this as a fortified site. (Perriam and Robinson 1998)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1144553
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 17809; 20222 (NT SMR).

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Old Cumbria Gazetteer
Books
- Perriam, Denis and Robinson, John, 1998, The Medieval Fortified Buildings of Cumbria (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 29)
  Denyer, S., 1985, 'The National Trust's lesser buildings in Cumbria' in Jill Ivy and Peter Clack (eds), Making Sense of Buildings (CBA 3 Durham 7) p 73-87

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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.

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*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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