Upper Chatto Farm

NT71NE 76 765 173

There are sporadic depopulated steadings and enclosures extending over two hectares on the W side of Upper Chatto farm.

Visited by OS (JRL) 2 November 1979.

Russell Coleman managed an Historic Scotland funded project to record medieval moated sites in Scotland. Gazetteers were produced for each regional council area between 1996 and 2002 with an uncompleted overall review in 2002-03. The results of the first year of the project were published in Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal, Volume 3 (1997).

Visibility: This is an upstanding earthwork or monument.

Information from Scottish Borders Council

The remains of a deserted village are situated in an improved field immediately to the NW of the farm of Upper Chatto. The village is laid out in two rows to either side of a hollow way, which drops obliquely down the slope to the SE of Coldside Burn from SW to NE. The footings of four buildings are visible, together with at least four rectangular platforms which may mark the site of others. Broad rig and furrow can be seen extending across most of the rest of the field. In addition to the village, what may be a moated site is situated on the terrace to the NW of Coldside Burn, where there are also the remains of several other enclosures and at least two more buildings.

One building and three platforms are situated along the NW side of the hollow way. The building lies at the NE end of the hollow way (Kale99 13) and measures 7.2m from NE to SW by 4.2m transversely within a wall reduced to a stony bank 1m in thickness and up to 0.5m in height. There is an entrance in the SE side, and an outshot extends 3.9m to the SW. The three building-platforms are strung out to the SW. The first (Kale99 37) measures 11m from NE to SW by 5.6m transversely and has a conjoined platform for what was probably an outshot extending 8m to the NW. The second (Kale99 38) measures 8m from NE to SW by 5.6m transversely and is attached to a turf bank that forms the SW side of a possible trackway dropping down the slope to the burn. The third platform (Kale99 39), which is situated at the SW end of the hollow way, measures 11.8m from NE to SW by 5.2m transversely.

The other buildings and platforms are situated along the SE side of the hollow way. The first building (Kale99 16) is situated on a broad terrace raised up above the level of the hollow way at its NE end. It measures7.5m from NW to SE by 4.5m transversely within faced-rubble walls 0.8m in thickness and up to 0.5m in height. To the NE, on the same terrace, there is a possible building-platform measuring 22m from NE to SW by 6.2m transversely, part of which is overlain by a drystone dyke. To the SW there is another building (Kale99 15) set on a platform. It measures 4.8m from NE to SW by at least 3.9m transversely within faced rubble walls 0.8m in thickness and up to 0.2m in height. The SE side of this building has been lost to modern disturbance. The next platform to the SW is partly occupied by a building (Kale99 14) measuring 6m from NE to SW by 3.8m transversely within stony bank 0.8m in thickness and up to 0.2m in height; the platform measures 14.2m from NE to SW by 4.2m transversely and is dug into the slope on the SE to a depth of 0.5m. The final building-platform (Kale99 40) lies at the SW end of the hollow way and measures 7.2m from NE to SW by 4.8m transversely. A larger rectangular terrace has been dug into the slopes to the NE.

The moated site (Kale99 261) is set on a low-lying terrace on the NW bank of the Coldside Burn, alongside the remains of several enclosures, the footings of a building and a building-platform. It is defined by a broad flat-bottomed ditch on the NW and SW, and by the edge of the terrace on the SE. The interior measures 15m from NW to SE by at least 13m transversely within a ditch up to 6m in width and 0.7m in depth on the NW and SW. The exact position of the NE side is not clear; there are traces of a shallow depression returning from the point at which the ditch peters out on the N, but the NE side is also overlain by a later building. The building (Kale99 42), which has two compartments, measures 12m from NE to SW by 4m transversely within footings reduced to a stony bank 1.4m in thickness and up to 0.3m in height. On the NW edge of the moat there is a building-platform (Kale99 41) that measures 6.7m from NE to SW by 4.2m transversely.

The date at which the village was deserted is not known, but none of its buildings are depicted on the Plan of the Estate of Over Chatto of 1808 (National Archives of Scotland RHP 11186).

(Kale99 13-16, 37-42)

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD, MFTR) 22 October 1999