Combe in 'Cumberland' (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Coome: Cowholm

In the civil parish of Half Morton .
In the historic county of Dumfriesshire.
Modern Authority of Dumfries And Galloway.
1974 county of Dumfries and Galloway.

OS Map Grid Reference: NY337721
Latitude 55.03904° Longitude -3.03932°

Combe in 'Cumberland' has been described as a probable Pele Tower, and also as a probable Bastle.

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains.

Description

Tower is depicted on the 1590 map at Combe, but it is shown as a house on the 1607 plot. Foundations are easily traced on a 5-6m high bankhead just east of Staffler Flow. A small stonehouse or bastle may have justified inclusion on both maps. (PastScape)

A map of 1590 places the tower of 'Coome' on the E side of the River Sark, but it more probably stood W of the river in the vicinity of the farmstead of Cowholm, which is noted (at NY 337 721) on the first edition of the OS 6-inch map (Dumfriesshire, sheet lix, 1862). (Cowholm is not noted on the 1976 edition of the OS 1:10,000 map). (Canmore)

Vanished tower shown on map of 1590 as Coome on the east of the River Sark. As with Grenewich (Greenrigg), also shown as east of the river, probably lay just west of the river in Scotland, but sometimes located as in Cumberland

The suggested site and remains are in Scotland and, although this area is called 'the debatable lands' because the area was contested the River Sark does make a clear natural boundary. In practice inhabitants of such houses probably felt much closer to their kinship alliances than any relation to the crown of either England or Scotland.

Sources of information, references and further reading

English Heritage (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 1389997; 67568 (Canmore).
Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Canmore (RCAHMS) entry
Books
- Salter, Mike, 1998, The Castles and Tower Houses of Cumbria (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 99 (slight)
  RCAHMS, 1997, Eastern Dumfriesshire: an archaeological landscape (Edinburgh) p. 314, No. 1262
  Perriam, Denis and Robinson, John, 1998, The Medieval Fortified Buildings of Cumbria (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 29) p. 229
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 92
  RCAHMS, 1981, The archaeological sites and monuments of Ewesdale and Lower Eskdale, Annandale and Eskdale District, Dumfries and Galloway Region (The archaeological sites and monuments of Scotland series No. 13: Edinburgh)
  Hyslop and Hyslop, J. and R., 1912, Langholm as it was: a history of Langholm and Eskdale from the earliest times (Sunderland; Edinburgh; Glasgow) p. 320
  Jeffrey, A., 1864, History and Antiquities of Roxburghshire Vol. 4 p. 232 (facsimile of map) online copy
Periodical Articles
- Graham, T.H.B., 1912, 'The Debatable Land' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 12 p. 49
  Ellis, H., 1829, 'Copy of a manuscript tract addressed to Lord Burghley, illustrative of the Border topography of Scotland, AD 1590, with a platt or map of the Borders taken in the same year' Archaeologia Vol. 22 p. 161-71 online copy
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- 1590, A Platt of the opposete Borders of Scotland to ye west marches of England (The Aglionby Platt) British Library online Gallery

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