MONUMENT NO. 21405

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DESCRIPTION

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Possible remains of a pele built between 1467-1500, now incoporated into a farm building at Ritton White House. Three walls of the bastle survive, the west wall containing a fireplace at first floor level.

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(NZ 05529442) Peel (GT) (1)

Described in the 1541 Survey as a stone house and a little barmkin, lately belonging to the suppressed monastery of Newminster: scarcely in good repair. (2)

NZ 05509442 The farm buildings at Ritton White House incorporate three walls of what appears to be a much older structure. The building, which has been of two stories has rubble walls 1.2 in thick with large roughly dressed quoins. In the west wall at upper floor level is a large fireplace with a large rectangular stone slab as lintel. The south wall has been pierced by two modern arches but there are traces of an older semicircular arch near the SW corner. The east wall has a small square headed window opening at ground floor level. There are no traces of vaulting in the lower part; the intervening floor was probably of wood although no joist holes could be seen.
Although the few architectural details remaining are not dateable, the thickness of the walls and the fact that the living quarters were on the first floor suggest that the remains are possibly those of a defended house, which, in the early surveys (see authority 2) were usually referred to as a 'stone house' or 'bastle'. No trace remains of the 'barmkin' referred to. The building concerned is in good condition and in use as a cart shed and straw store. (3)

Condition unchanged. (4)

The pele was probably built by the Neminster Abbay monks between 1467 and 1500, at the same time as other peles were built on their estates. (5,6)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1921-1947

( 2) Archaeologia Aeliana : or miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity

C J Bates 14, 1891 Page(s)46

( 3) Field Investigators Comments

F1 EG 20-FEB-57

( 4) Field Investigators Comments

F2 BHP 17-DEC-70

(5) Dodds, JF 1999 Bastions and Belligerents: Medieval Strongholds in Northumberland

Page(s)197

(6) David J Cathcart King 1983 Castellarium anglicanum : an index and bibliography of the castles in England, Wales and the Islands. Volume II : Norfolk-Yorkshire and the islands

Page(s)352

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