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Watties Spindles
Farmstead (Medieval), Tower House (Medieval)
Site Name Watties Spindles
Classification Farmstead (Medieval), Tower House (Medieval)
Alternative Name(s) Wadespinnels
Canmore ID 74613
Site Number NT60NE 10.01
NGR NT 6675 0908
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/74613
- Council Scottish Borders, The
- Parish Southdean
- Former Region Borders
- Former District Roxburgh
- Former County Roxburghshire
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.
Field Visit (25 February 1992)
NT60NE 10.01 6675 0908.
The tower lies at the core of a farmstead, comprising two parallel ranges of buildings, a detached hut and two associated enclosures. The tower has been robbed to its foundations, leaving robber trenches and an occasional boulder to mark its outline. It measures about 5m from NE to SW by 4.2m transversely within robber-trenches some 2.2m in width; a large boulder marks the SW corner of the building. To the NE there is the robber-trench of a building some 15m in length and 6m in breadth, and to the SW the fragmentary remains of a possible building are defined by a dog-leg stretch of bank some 10m in length. An enclosure is attached to the NW side of the range of buildings.
The building which lies parallel to this range on the SE is also largely robbed, but appears to have comprised two compartments, some 15m in length and 7m in breadth over rubble-faced walls 0.9m in thickness; it has a small enclosure on its SW end and a large subrectangular enclosure on the SE. Some 40m SW of the tower there is what may be a small building or hut (NT 6671 0905 ROX92 65); it measures 5m from NNW to SSE by 4m transversely over banks standing to 0.4m in height, but its SE end is much reduced. A bank forms two sides of an enclosure on the SW of the hut.
(ROX92 61-65).
Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 25 February 1992.
Sbc Note
Visibility: Upstanding building, which may not be intact.
Information from Scottish Borders Council
