View source for Bastle house

{{Short description|Fortified house of the Anglo-Scottish border}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

[[File:Rebellion House, High Callerton - geograph.org.uk - 100815.jpg|thumb|Rebellion House at High Callerton near [[Ponteland]] – a simple bastle house a long way south of the border]]
[[File:Woodhouses Bastle - geograph.org.uk - 1485031.jpg|thumb|Woodhouses Bastle]]

Bastel, '''bastle''',<ref>Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press 2009. Bastel-house. "A fortified farmhouse of a type chiefly found in northern England close to the Scottish border, typically built in the 16th or early 17th cent. as a defence against raiders, and having a vaulted ground floor used for storage and livestock, the main living area being on the upper floor and reached by means of an external staircase or ladder."</ref> or bastille houses are a type of construction found along the [[Anglo-Scottish border]], in the areas formerly plagued by [[border reivers]].  They are fortified [[farmhouses]], characterised by security measures against [[Raid (military)|raid]]s.  Their name is said to derive from the [[French language|French]] word "[[:wiktionary:bastille|bastille]]".

==Characteristics==
The characteristics of the classic bastle house are extremely thick [[stone]] [[defensive wall|walls]] (about one meter thick), with the ground floor devoted to stable space for the most valuable [[livestock|animals]], and a [[vaulted]] stone or flat timber floor between it and the first floor with internal access such as a stairway or ladder.<ref>Brunskill, R. W.. ''Houses and cottages of Britain: origins and development of traditional buildings''. Great Britain: Victor Gollancz in association with Peter Crawley, 1997. 28-29. Print.</ref>  The family's living quarters were on the floor above the ground, and during the times before the suppression of the reivers, were only reachable by a ladder which was pulled up from the inside at night.  The windows were small or even only [[arrow slit]]s.

Bastle houses have many characteristics in common with military [[blockhouse]]s, the main difference being that a bastle was intended primarily as a family dwelling, instead of a pure fortification.

Many bastle houses survive today; their construction ensured that they would last a very long time, but most are either ruined or much altered for use as residences or farm buildings.  They may be seen on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border.{{citation needed|date=February 2020}}  Some well-preserved examples are Thropton Pele, [[Bellingham, Northumberland|Hole Bastle]], [[Hepple|Woodhouses Bastle]] and [[Black Middens Bastle House|Black Middens Bastle]].

==See also==
* [[Bastille]]
* [[La Haye Sainte]]
* [[Peel tower]]
* [[Scottish Vernacular]]
* [[Tower house]]
* [[Tower houses in Britain and Ireland]]
* [[Vernacular architecture]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
{{Commons}}
* [[Herman Gabriel Ramm]], R. W. McDowall, Eric Mercer (1970) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Z0k9AAAAMAAJ&q=Shielings+and+Bastles 'Shielings and Bastles.]'' HMSO: London.
* {{Cite book |title=Alston Moor, Cumbria |first1=Andrew |last1=Davison |first2=Lucy |last2=Jessop |first3=Matthew |last3=Whitfield |year=2013 |publisher=[[Historic England]] |isbn=9781848021174 |url=https://retail.historicenglandservices.org.uk/alston-moor-cumbria.html}}

{{European farmhouse types}}
{{Scottish architecture}}
{{Architecture of England}}
{{Locations of Bastle houses in the United Kingdom}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bastle House}}
[[Category:Bastle houses| ]]
[[Category:Border Reivers]]
[[Category:Fortified houses]]
[[Category:History of Northumberland]]
[[Category:History of agriculture in England]]
[[Category:History of the Scottish Borders]]
[[Category:History of agriculture in Scotland]]
[[Category:Housing in England]]
[[Category:Housing in Scotland]]
[[Category:House types in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Human habitats]]
[[Category:Rural Scotland]]
[[Category:Scots language]]
[[Category:Vernacular architecture]]