Archaeology Notes

Event ID 718521

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/718521

NT60NE 10.00 6675 0905.

Pont's map of Teviotdale (drawn about 1600) shows the lapsed hamlet of Wadespinnels (Wattie's Spindles: NT 667 090). Jeffrey (A Jeffrey 1864) alludes to this place, stating that a pre-Reformation chapel stood near here (probably on the authority of the OSA where mention is made of a chapel three miles from Southdean - see also NT60NE 12). It is not marked on Pont's map and could only have been a chapel of ease. The lapsed hamlet stood near Letham.

G Watson 1926.

NT 6675 0905. On the summit of the knoll called "Wattie's Spindles" (locally known as Katey's Croft) are the footings of two long rectangular buildings lying parallel to one another, one measuring about 42.0m x 5.0m and the other 38.0m x 5.0m. Each has been sub-divided into compartments, but the exact number of divisions could not be ascertained due to mutilation. About 20.0m W of the northern buildings are the footings of a smaller one which appears to have measured about 12.0m N-S x 4.5m. In each case all that remains is a turf-covered rubble wall 0.3m maximum height. The site seems to have been enclosed, on the SE side at least, by a turf bank, only the S segment being at all well-preserved. Other field enclosures, and much rig-and-furrow ploughing, exist close by. This site may be the last remants of "Wadespinnels".

Visited by OS(JLD) 11 October 1960.

As described in the report of 11 October 1960.

Visited by OS(TRG) 20 September 1976.

This archaeological landscape, which occupies the N spur of Crink Law, comprises a tower, a farmstead, rig and a boundary bank. The tower occupies a knoll overlooking the Shaw Burn with rig on the slopes running down to the Windy Cleuch to the W and on the hill-top to the S, where it has not been levelled by recent cultivation. A boundary bank, comprising a bank with an external ditch, delimits this rig on its S side.

A settlement called 'Wadespinnels' is depicted on Blaeu's map of Teviotdale, based upon Pont (Blaeu 1654), but is absent from General Roy's map (Roy 1747-55) and Stobie's map of Roxburghshire (Stobie

1770). The Hearth Tax return of 1691 lists one person with a single hearth (SRO 69/21/1).

10.01 NT 6675 0908 Tower; Farmstead (ROX92 61-65)

10.02 NT 6650 0900 Rig; Boundary Bank; Stock enclosure

Visited by RCAHMS PJD 25 February 1992.