Bastle Houses

Bastle Houses and Sheep Buchts Coming from zero in terms of knowledge of these sites, we have now recorded bastles or possible bastles, countless sheep milking buchts and numerous shieling sites. The emerging scenario depicts tenant farmers, rearing sheep and...

The Glenochar trail, which was officially opened on 30 August 1997 by the Marquess of Linlithgow, leads you through a landscape which has changed little since the occupation of the fermtoun. It is likely that the treeless glen seen today...

As part of Biggar Archaeology Group’s (BAG) initiatives in local heritage matters, five new display panels have been installed in Daer valley for the benefit of walkers to the area. Two A1, fully illustrated colour panels have been installed on part of...

Biggar Archaeology Group PDF Reports. info@biggararchaeology.org.uk

Since 1981 after the discovery that Windgate House near Coulter was a bastle house, search, survey and in some instances excavation, has revealed a series of hitherto unknown such houses in Upper Clydesdale. Research continues on the subject of Scottish bastle houses, and fieldwork, although now scaled down, continues also. This paper presents several sites which have seen less intensive research but are nevertheless important as part of the grouping of bastles and probable bastles in Upper Clydesdale, now part of South Lanarkshire. The sites that are in this paper have not merited individual reports compared to those places which have been more thoroughly investigated, mainly by excavation and which are given on the BAG website. This work completes the reporting of sites which are confidently interpreted as bastle houses in Clydesdale, although other possible sites are known, and numerous localities where only historical references are now available, are also suspected as being of the bastle tradition of building and occupation in the 17th century (see Zeune 1992).

An account of the discovery, survey, consolidation, excavations and research of a 17th-century defensive farmhouse and buildings in Clydesdale, with supplementary contextual information.

Download – The partial excavation of Glendoroch Bastle House, near Crawfordjohn, South Lanarkshire | 1.5MB | 2015 | Tam Ward, BAG | Partial excavation of a previously unrecorded building showed it to belong to the Bastle House tradition of...

Biggar Archaeology Group PDF Reports. info@biggararchaeology.org.uk

Here is a short pdf  on the monumental stone commemorating the life of George Ramsay of Foulden Bastle. The existence of bastle houses on the Anglo Scottish borders have long been known and recorded in England by the Royal Commission...

Download pdf report: Early 18th century pottery from pre Lowland Clearance sites in Scotland. Several excavated sites in southern Scotland have produced assemblages of early 18th century red earthenware and other types of Staffordshire type slip ware pottery. The sites are...

Since 1981 after the discovery that Windgate House near Coulter was a bastle house, search, survey and in some instances excavation, has revealed a series of hitherto unknown such houses in Upper Clydesdale. Research continues on the subject of...

Download – The logistics of building bastle houses and associated buildings in Upper Clydesdale | 2015 | 3.2MB – Tam Ward, BAG This report attempts to answer questions regarding the selection, acquisition and use of materials to build bastle houses and their associate buildings...

Several excavated sites in southern Scotland have produced assemblages of early 18th century red earthenware and other types of Staffordshire type slip ware pottery. The sites are known to have been abandoned before 1760 and furthermore much of the pottery is...

An account of the discovery, survey, consolidation, excavations and research of a 17th-century defensive farmhouse and buildings in Clydesdale, with supplementary contextual information. This Glenochar Bastle House and Fermtoun report replaces all previous works on the site, but much is...

Revisiting some of our past excavations sites recently found the reservoirs are particularly low this year. Some background information The four reservoirs are Talla, Fruid and Megget, all in Borders Region and Daer in South Lanarkshire. Various campaigns of work have...

This report features a localised grouping of castle sites and a bastle house that are given as a guide to defensive sites dating from the 12th to the 17th centuries in Upper Clydesdale, South Lanarkshire. Map showing locations of sites...