Castlefacts³

Thockrington Bastle

Has been described as a Possible Bastle

There are no visible remains

Name	Thockrington Bastle
Alternative Names	Throckrington
Historic Country	Northumberland
Modern Authority	Northumberland
1974 Authority	Northumberland
Civil Parish	Bavington

(Area NY 958791) To the north of the farmhouse at Throckrington, there are the remains of a bastle house (Hodgson 1897)

Listed, but no further information (McDowall 1965).

The area shows evidence of depopulation, but no tradition or trace of a Bastle could be found. (F1 DK 16-NOV-1966).

Bastle remains near farm, show bolt holes in the walls of a doorway. Mounds beside tower known as the 'night folds' (Long 1967). (Northumberland HER)

Bastle. Not mentioned 1541, though in the area surveyed. Site about NY 958791. (King 1983 ref. N.C.H., iv, 403, n3.)

To the north of the farm house are the ruins of the bastle house which has a pointed doorway and channels in the thickness of the walls for the door bolts. There had been several enclosures (now marked by grass-grown mounds) still known as 'the night folds,' in which it is said that the cattle continue to be folded every night up to the middle of the eighteenth century. (Hodgson 1897)

One of the Shafto's - probably William who was born in 1576 and later became a captain in the Commonwealth army - built a fortified house of some sort on the northern side of the village, most likely as a safe retreat for the villages in times of strife. There was still eleven houses in the village at that time.

Today there are only two cottages, a farm and the church in Throckington. Earthworks surrounded the buildings, the foundations of the strong house being entangled with cottage remains. One set of grass-covered mounds is still called the 'night folds', supposedly where cattle and sheep were held for overnight safety. No doubt that this happened although the mounds look like old foundation coverings. (Dodds 1999)

Gatehouse Comments

Dodds constructs a partly plausible account although the actual evidence is slight. On the six-inch OS map surveyed in 1862 three small roofed rectangular buildings are shown in an orchard north of the farm, by the 1894 map they are roofless and they are not shown on the 1919 map. What Hodgson saw may well be one of these buildings. The southern most of these three building seems the most substantial on the map and of the size of a small 'pele-house' (not of a size able to accommodate the whole village population), its site is now covered by a modern farm building.

- Philip Davis

Not scheduled

Not Listed

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)

18777

County Historic Environment Record

www.keystothepast.info/article/10339/Site-Details?PRN=N9241

OS Map Grid Reference	NY958791
Latitude	55.1059303283691
Longitude	-2.06746006011963
Eastings	395800
Northings	579100