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Slack's Tower, Pele-house
Farmstead (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Pele House (16th Century), Tower (Medieval)(Possible)
Site Name Slack's Tower, Pele-house
Classification Farmstead (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Pele House (16th Century), Tower (Medieval)(Possible)
Canmore ID 74660
Site Number NT60NW 3.01
NGR NT 64403 09893
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/74660
- Council Scottish Borders, The
- Parish Southdean
- Former Region Borders
- Former District Roxburgh
- Former County Roxburghshire
NT60NW 3.01 64403 09883.
(NT 6440 0988) Slack's Tower (NR) (remains of)
Slack's Tower, a 16th c pele-house, is oblong on plan, 38'9" NE-SW by 24 '3", and contains three storeys, none of which have been vaulted. Of the two-side walls, the NW one still stands to ita wall-head, but the SE one has been breached. Both gables are sufficiently entire to show that they were finished with a tabling and that there has never been a parapet. The masonry is rubble, roughly coursed and clay-built. A lintelled doorway, with checks, gives admission to the ground floor (See RCAHMS 1956, pl.100, fig.543), while the first floor had a separate entrance, reached from a forestair, which must have been situated in the part of the SE wall that is now demolished.
The pele-house stands in association with enclosures and buildings, now in the last stages of ruin, as indicated on plan. At present it is impossible to sort out the complex into hall and chamber, stable, cattle-shed and barn, the constituents of the better sort of 16th C Border farm.
(RCAHMS 1956)
As described and planned by the RCAHMS. To the S of the enclosure at NT 6443 0986 there are a number of indeterminate features outlined by very vague turf banks.
Revised at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (WDJ) 15 February 1967
No change to field report of 15 February 1967.
Visited by OS (BS) 21 September 1976
Measured Survey (1991)
RCAHMS surveyed Slack’s Tower pele-house, tower and farmstead in 1991 at a scale of 1:500. The resultant plan was redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:1000 (RCAHMS 1994f, Fig.8)
Field Visit (11 December 1992)
The pele-house known as Slack's Tower lies at the heart of a sequence of buildings spanning a considerable period of time. The buildings can be divided into two groups: the first, and better preserved, lies to the NW and NE of the pele-house and is possibly coeval with it; and the second, on the SE, has been reduced to grass-covered footings, which may predate the occupation of the pele-house. After settlement ceased on the site, a number of drystone folds were built over the footings of the buildings.
The pele-house, which still stands to two storeys in height, measures 8.7m from NE to SW by 4.35m transversely within walls 1.55m in thickness. The proportions of the building (2:1) are longer than those of the other pele-houses or towers in Southdean (e.g. NT60NE 9 and 10), but its walls are of comparable thickness (e.g. Northbank Tower at 1.5m). On the NE there is a ground-level entrance with checks for inner and outer doors and holes for a draw-bar; the first floor entrance probably lay on the SE where the wall has collapsed. There are no window lights at ground floor level, but two (on the SE and NW) can be seen on the first floor, both decorated with quirked roll-mouldings; the NW light was later reduced in width. In the interior there are scarcements along the sides to support a timber floor at first-floor level, and a slightly corbelled scarcement is visible on the NE gable at second-floor level, but there is no matching scarcement on the SW gable. The function of a scarcement lower down the SW gable, but above the level of those on the side-walls is unclear. However there is a corbel in the middle of the SW gable at first-floor level, probably to support a hearth, and on the other gable there is a corbel on either side of and just above the entrance. There are stone aumbries in the SW and NE end walls, and what appears to be joist holes on the exterior of the NE gable at second floor level. (ROX92 26)
The three buildings to the NW and NE of the pele-house are of substantial dimensions, measuring 9.6m by 3.8m, 11.7m by 4.25m and 12.6m by 2.7m within earth-bonded rubble-faced walls ranging between 0.8m and 0.9m in thickness and standing to between 0.6m and 0.8m in height. The two buildings to the NW of the pele-house are both of two compartments, each with a single entrance on the SE side-wall and with an internal entrance to the inner compartment; both have extensions added to one end. The more northerly of the two has a displaced door-rybat at its entrance, and an in-situ, door-rybat wqith a draw-bar recess, similar to that inside the pele-house, can be seen on the E side of the inner partition. An enclosure abuts the NW sides of the two buildings.
(ROX92 27, 28, 33)
The structures to the SE of the pele-house comprise the remains of three buildings, an enclosure and what may be a tower. The tower lies immediately SE of the pele-house and measures some 6.6m from NE to SW by 4.9m transversely within a wall, the outer face of which is visible on the SW, now reduced to a stony bank 2.5m in thickness and 0.6m in height. These dimensions are comparable with other towers in the area, e.g. Longslack Burn and Hindhaughhead (NT61SW 15 and 25). The three buildings range from 6.3m to 11.6m in length by 2.6m to 3.45m in breadth within rubble walls 0.7m to 0.85m thick and up to 0.5m high. The largest, which lies to the S of the tower, is of two compartments and is linked to the tower by a wall. The building to the E of the tower has traces of an extension to the SSW and there is a rectilinear enclosure to the S with a gap in the NW adjacent to the building.
(ROX92 29-32)
Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 11 December 1992.
Note (3 November 2015)
This monument was delisted and was removed from the list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest.
The structure is still designated as a scheduled monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.
Information from Historic Environment Scotland, 3rd November 2015
Sbc Note (15 April 2016)
Visibility: Standing structure or monument.
Information from Scottish Borders Council
