Glenochar Bastle House and Fermtoun
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Glenochar Bastle House and Fermtoun An account of the discovery, survey, consolidation, excavations and research of a 17th-century defensive farmhouse and buildings in Clydesdale, with supplementary contextual information. By Tam Ward Report contributions by Robin Murdoch (glass), Dennis Gallagher (tobacco pipes), Dr Jennifer Miller (wood), Jennifer Thoms (bone) and the late Ian Paterson BAG (catalogues), Ann Mathieson (testaments). Illustration contributions by John Borland, Margaret Brown, Alan Cadzow, Sandra Kelly and Ian Fisher, 2017. Daer Main Report PAGE 1 Glenochar Bastle House and Fermtoun An account of the discovery, survey, consolidation, excavations and research of a 17th-century defensive farmhouse and buildings in Clydesdale, with supplementary contextual information. By Tam Ward Report contributions by Robin Murdoch (glass), Dennis Gallagher (tobacco pipes), Dr Jennifer Miller (wood), Jennifer Thoms (bone) and the late Ian Paterson BAG (catalogues), Ann Mathieson (testaments). Illustration contributions by John Borland, Margaret Brown, Alan Cadzow, Sandra Kelly and Ian Fisher 2017 Abstract Survey and excavation has demonstrated that Glenochar was the site of a bastle house with an associated 17/18th century settlement and farming landscape. Remains of buildings and finds from the site indicate occupation beginning around AD 1600 and ending around AD 1760; the time of the recently researched Lowland Clearances. The evidence from Glenochar, taken along with other sites excavated by BAG, show that defensive farm houses were built in Clydesdale and further north of the Anglo-Scottish border than was previously known. Furthermore, archaeologically proven for the first time, is that major land clearance of people did take place in both Clydesdale and in neighbouring Tweeddale in the mid-18th century. Image by Ian Fisher See frontispiece 1 CONTENTS Introduction Page 3 Methodology Page 4 General notes Pages 7 - 9 Excavation Pages 9 – 46 Reconstructing Glenochar Page 46 Finds summary Page 46 Tobacco pipe report Pages 47 - 56 Glass report Pages 57 - 83 Pottery summary & photographs Pages 83 -85 Stone objects summary Pages 85 -87 Slate objects & photographs Pages 88 -92 Metal objects & photographs Pages 93 – 96 Misc’ objects incl’ beads Pages 96 – 98 Glenochar Trail and restoration works Pages 98 – 104 Glenochar pre-history Pages 104 – 105 Further bastle trails in Clydesdale Page 106 Bastles – problem with a name Pages 107 -111 Historical ref’s and maps Pages 111 -112 Glenochar testaments Pages 112 – 116 Raid on Glenochar Page 116 Search for further bastle houses Pages 117 - 124 Discussion and conclusion Pages 125 – 128 Acknowledgements Pages 128 – 129 Glossary of terms Page 130 – 132 References Pages 132 - 137 Appendix I. Finds catalogues Pages 137 - 201 Appendix II. Analysis of wood samples Pages 201 Appendix III. Analysis of bone. Pages 202 - 205 2 INTRODUCTION This report replaces all previous works on the site, but much is repeated from the earlier report; a limited edition and other articles published by the writer (Ward 19981,2&3) as part of the celebrations to open the heritage trail the same year. However, considerably more material and detail are given here along with photographs and other images. In 1986 the site was brought to the attention of the group of voluntary archaeologists who later became the formal team known as Biggar Archaeological Group (BAG), working from their base in Biggar Museums, whose archaeological work has all been voluntary since 1981, when the first bastle house in Clydesdale was discovered and later excavated and consolidated in the same manner as Glenochar (Gillanders 1986 & Ward 2016). By 1986 a formal study was underway; the Clydesdale Bastle Project, to explore the possibility that further sites lay undiscovered in the Scottish Lowlands but further afield from the Anglo Scottish border where such sites were long recognised. The hypothesis was proved true and research on the subject continues. The site is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Site location and environs Glenochar lies at NS 944 140 and is given on the OS 1:25,000 scale Explorer Map Series, No 329, Lowther Hills, Sanquhar & Leadhills, Wanlockhead & Crawford. Located in the Southern Uplands of Scotland some 50 miles north of the border from Carlisle, it is 3 miles south of J14 on the M74 motorway, and on the A702 road from Edinburgh to Dumfries. A car park, adjacent Glenochar Farm has been made for visitors to the site trail (of which more below). Fig 1. Location map 1. Fig 2. Location map 2. 3 Nestling in a short glen from which the Glenochar Burn runs west to east where it discharges into Daer Water near the modern farm, the ancient site straddles Rae Cleuch, a tributary of the main burn and at their confluence. Plate 1. View of the site from the south. Display panel in the foreground. Mostly built on the sloping north side of the main burn the site has a very limited outlook towards the main road where traffic, always would pass, however the site when occupied would have been highly visible from the road. The landscape consists of upland pasture, much of which remains unimproved and is all over 300m OD making it a hill sheep, and cattle rearing landscape with little scope for arable agriculture other than for fodder crops. As will be shown later the landscape, its economy and climate have changed little over the last 400 years or so. METHODOLOGY Survey At the request by the writer the Royal Commission for the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS, now Historic Environment Scotland; HES) kindly agreed to survey most of the site (that part east of Rae Cleuch) (Fig 3), and the site of the neighbouring bastle of Glengeith to the north at Elvanfoot. This allowed for an immediate improvement of understanding the locations and the configuration of 4 all recognisable features, which showed a settlement pattern, but of unknown date. BAG later surveyed the area to the west of Rae Cleuch (Fig 4). Dealing with the RCAHMS survey plan, it was evident that a nucleated settlement existed and that other associated agricultural remains had also survived. Such was the extent of the visible remains it seemed inconceivable that the place had not previously been recorded or recognised. The excellent publication by RCAHMS for its Lanarkshire Inventory (RCAHMS 1978) only embraced prehistoric and Roman sites and monuments, unlike its neighbouring survey in Peeblesshire (RCAHMS 1967) where the medieval and later landscape were also surveyed and reported. Fig 3. 5 Fig 4. BAG survey. However, from the plan (Fig 3) the outline of at least nine long buildings apart from the obvious bastle itself, were visible as turf covered stony banks. Most conspicuous was the patch of seven lazy beds up to 2m broad and lying on the steep bank of Rae Cleuch west of the bastle house. The outline of at least seven sheep milking buchts were recorded, these having been first recognised and surveyed archaeologically by BAG in Scotland (Ward 20121). Some of the open- ended pens showed they had side entrances, a theme noted on numerous other examples in southern Scotland (Ward 20121 ibid). The northern boundary of the present fields on the east side of the bastle had turf banks to indicate the existence of enclosures there before the 19th century dykes were built. On the south side of Glenochar Burn two enclosures lie on the steep hill slopes there, the primary one consists of a large stony bank of about 3m wide by 1.5m high and enclosing an area of 130m by around 30m, it forms a ‘D’ shape on the hill and is open on the steep slope down to the burn on its north side. Above it is a less substantial embanked enclosure which measures c60m by 30m and is open at each end where it would otherwise conjoin with the larger enclosure bank. Finally, the position of three Bronze Age habitations appear in the survey, these are known as unenclosed platform settlements and are now well attested to be the sites of round timber houses dating to the Bronze Age (e.g. Terry 1995, Ward 20042 & 20131) The west side of Rae Cleuch (Fig 4) was surveyed by BAG and shows a similar arrangement of turf bank enclosures forming three fields which pre-date the existing dyke and fenced fields there. Phasing can be 6 implied by the banks and is given as 1-3 on the plan. At least four buchts are seen here as open-ended enclosures and they are typically arranged on the external side of the fields, where sheep would be driven down to be milked, but would not have access to any crops within the enclosures, probably mostly fodder crops. Two small clearance cairns are most likely to be associated with the fields, however, a grouping of small cairns of prehistoric age are to be found to the west of these fields in unimproved pasture there (Ward 1992). The entire excavation site was levelled with a dumpy level and records of this are in the site archive but not given in this report as being considered superfluous. Plate 2. Showing the lazy beds, looking west. GENERAL NOTES Building materials Throughout the site, the construction stone, apart from a few pieces of red sandstone used at the bastle entrance, was the local greywacke, of which nearly the entire Southern Uplands of Scotland is composed. Walls and floors were built with this rock which had been gathered from the landscape rather than being quarried as the rounded edges everywhere showed. It does however tend to be found with flat surfaces suitable for the purposes for which it was used at this site, i.e. walls and floor surfaces. Slates were also used and these are known to have been extracted from the quarry near the modern farm and which was used as roofing slate until the 20th century, however, no roof at old Glenochar was covered with slates, their use was confined to making drain and floor coverings, but not throughout the occupation of the site, rather in the latter stages of it, it is likely that the quarry was not operational during the occupation of old Glenochar, perhaps outcrop or surface slate 7 being gathered for the purposes described here only.