Whitlow Bastle 3, Kirkhaugh

Description

About 120m north-west of Whitlow Farmhouse is a derelict range of farm buildings that was originally a bastle. It was built in the late C16 or early C17 and altered later that century. It is one of three bastles at Whitlow. The thickest wall of the bastle is about 0.9m thick and original byre doorway stands in the south end wall. Other original features include some small blocked openings at ground and first floors.

Three such buildings are clustered nearby at Whitlow, barely 300m to the south-east of the fort. One of these, termed 'Whitlow I' by Peter Ryder (1994, 125), is contained within the long range of farm buildings to the south west of the 19th-century farm house. The ruins of the second (Whitlow II) lie some 70m to the north-west of the farm house, and the third (Whitlow III), recently restored and partly roofed, lies a further 30m or so to the north-west. A fourth bastle lies in a more isolated location at the core of the Holymire farm building, part-way between Whitlow III and the fort. The low ruins of Whitlow II and the heavily altered walls of the original Holymire bastle are difficult to date, but the earliest phase at Whitlow I has been assigned with some confidence to around 1600, and that at Whitlow III to the latter part of the 17th century (Ryder 1995, 125; 2006, 4-8; 2008, 12-13). All four of these early buildings have similar dimensions, between 6m and 6.4m in width and from 10m to 10.9m in length, and these proportions are mirrored in many other examples throughout the district (Ryder 1995, 116-125). (Went and Ainsworth)

See records for Whitley Castle Bastle 1 and 2; Whitlow bastles 1, 2 and Holymire Bastle