Bastle house
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Bastle, bastel or bastille houses are a type of construction found along the Anglo-Scottish border, in the areas formerly plagued by border reivers. They are fortified farmhouses, characterised by sec
Rebellion House at High Callerton near Ponteland – a simple bastle house a long way south of the border
Woodhouses Bastle
Black Middens Bastle, Northumberland
Microcosm of London Plate 094 Westminster Hall edited
Border reivers
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Border reivers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border. They included both English and Scottish people, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims' nationality. The
Bastle house
…Bastle, bastel or bastille houses are a type of construction found along the Anglo-Scottish border, in the areas formerly plagued by border reivers. They are fortified farmhouses, characterised by security measures against raids. Their name is said to derive from the French word "bastille". The…
Reivers at Gilnockie Tower in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, from a 19th-century print
Notorious raider Walter Scott of Harden's horn, noted in a poem called "The Reiver's Wedding" by Sir Walter Scott. It reads in part: "He took a bugle frae his side,/With names carved o'er and o'er,/Full many a chief of meikle pride,/That Border bugle bore."
Dryhope Tower near Selkirk in Scotland, built in the 1500s for protection against the reivers
Auld Wat of Harden by Tom Scott. A romanticised image of a notorious raider, Walter Scott of Harden.