We are looking forward to welcoming you at The Hott, our project.
We are planning to refurbish the two main buildings, and to link them with a new extension, and this will be our home in retirement. For now it remains a work in progress – we expect to complete the project within ten years or so.
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Thorngrafton
The Hott is a c19th stone farmhouse located at the southern edge of the hamlet of Thorngrafton, about ¾ mile north of Bardon Mill in Northumberland and roughly halfway between Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the east and Carlisle to the west. Thorngrafton perches on the north side of the South Tyne valley and the house faces south, towards the valley.
Behind and to the left in the picture above is a stone cottage, which predates the farmhouse by at least another century. There has been a farmhouse on this site for much longer – The Hott is the only house in Thorngrafton to be named on the Ordnance Survey map of the area.
A lot has changed since we took this photograph, only a week or so before we completed the purchase in May 2018. Most notably, we have demolished the stone barn (the building to the left with the green roof).
Crown copyright.
Our Bastle
Many old farmhouses in Northumberland are bastles. No, not castles pronounced as if in a Monty Python sketch – bastles.
A bastle is a fortified house (usually a farmhouse), built at a time when Northumberland residents were under constant threat of raids from north of the Scottish border (about 30 miles north-west of Thorngrafton at its nearest point). Bastles are characterised by very thick walls, sometimes containing hidden rooms which were used as hiding places.
The highest density of surviving bastles is in the town of Haltwhistle, about 4 miles to the west of Thorngrafton although many others exist nearby in various states from ruin to functioning houses.
There may have been a bastle on the site of The Hott – perhaps the original Hott? The eastern wall of the cottage is 12-14 feet thick and reputedly part of an old bastle wall.
Location, Location, Location
Being northerners by birth, we were both keen to get back to the north of England in retirement, but at a location away from suburbia – somewhere with a view, but not completely cut off.
As you can see, we got our view; and yet this is not a remote location. It is within walking distance of the nearest railway station, bus stops, village store and pub. And this year, we’re getting broadband too.
What’s In A Name?
In case you are wondering about the meaning of the mysterious name of our country seat, “The Hott”, we have been told by neighbours that is is nothing more than an ancient vernacular word meaning “hut”.
Now, let’s never mention that again.