Wingates Pele Cottage
Has been described as a Possible Bastle, and also as a Possible Pele Tower
There are masonry ruins/remnants remains
Name | Wingates Pele Cottage |
Alternative Names | |
Historic Country | Northumberland |
Modern Authority | Northumberland |
1974 Authority | Northumberland |
Civil Parish | Nunnykirk |
Pele Cottage, located on the north side of Wingates village, has been recorded to possess 1m thick walls. This may suggest that the building if of some antiquity and therefore be a bastle or pele. (Keys to the Past)
No tower or fortified dwelling – generally labelled pelehouses, stonehouses or bastles in contemporary sources – is listed at Wingates in any of the Border surveys of the 15th or 16th centuries. However Pele Cottage on the north side of the village has walls around 1m thick which would be characteristic of the type of fortified farmhouses known as pelehouses or bastles commonly found in the border districts of Northumberland, Cumbria and the Scottish Borders.
Pele Cottage would merit further study by a historic buildings specialist. It appears to be the oldest surviving building in the village, the thickness of its walls and its name suggesting that it may have originated as a defensible 'pele house'. Now more commonly labelled bastles, such pele houses represent the type of two-storey defensible farmhouse built in considerable numbers right across the border counties in the late 16th or early 17th centuries. (Carlton and Ruchworth)
Not scheduled
Not Listed
County Historic Environment Record
OS Map Grid Reference | NZ098951 |
Latitude | 55.2504806518555 |
Longitude | -1.84616994857788 |
Eastings | 409873 |
Northings | 595154 |