Make house

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Rebellion House, Ponteland - Preserved
Black Middens, Bellingham - ruin

Bastle houses (also bastel or bastille ) are called a special type of construction of buildings. They represent fortified farms, which are characterized by various structural measures to protect against raids. They are found mainly on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border in areas that have suffered from raids by the Border Reivers in earlier times .

The name is derived from the French word "bastille".

description

A typical handicraft house is two stories high and has walls up to one meter thick. The ground floor served both as a storage room for food and as a stable for the most valuable animals. The ceiling was shaped as a stone vault or made of thick beams and had no passage to the first floor above. The family's living rooms and bedrooms were on this first floor and could only be reached via an external ladder. This was brought in at night to protect against attacks. The roofs were covered with slate or other rubble stones, loopholes mostly served as windows and for ventilation. Bastle houses were also often surrounded by a low stone curtain wall, the interior of which was used at night as a gate for the less valuable cattle.

Despite their appearance, they were not pure fortifications, but served a family as the center of living and living. This and their robust construction have allowed the Bastle houses to survive to this day, even if many of these buildings either only exist as ruins or have been rebuilt over time.

Beautiful preserved examples of this type of building, where you can also see the characteristic features, are Thropton, The Pele Hole Bastle , Woodhouses Bastle and Black Middens Bastle .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2008. Bastle house.
  2. ^ Johnson, 1978 , p. 166.
  3. ↑ Brunskill, 2006 , p. 28 f.
  4. ^ Durham / McBride, 1995 , p. 24.

literature

  • Brunskill, RW: Houses and Cottages of Britain: Origins and Development of Traditional Buildings . University Press, Yale, 2006.
  • Durham, Keith; McBride, Angus: The Border Reivers: The story of the Anglo-Scottish borderlands . Osprey Publishing, 1995. ISBN 1-85532-417-2 .
  • Johnson, Paul: The National Trust Book of British Castles . Book Club Associates, London, 1978.
  • Ram; McDowall; Mercer: Shielings and bastles . HMSO, London, 1970.

Web links