Ruins of a bastle-type house at Rowantree Stob, Allendale. Photo by Peter Ryder.

Rowantree Stob bastle-derivative house - retains the bastle arrangements of living accommodation above a ground floor byre but in which less emphasis is laid on defensibility. The building is ruinous, but still has a good round-headed byre entrance door set in an end wall only 0.6m thick. The building measures 8.6m by 6.3m with side walls 0.85m thick. The site is overlooked by a steep hillside and is less than ideal from a defensive standpoint. (1)

Ruined building on the west side of the East Allen valley. The house lies in an unusual site, tucked into the foot of the steeply-rising valley side. The place appears as 'Rowneterstowe' in the 1547 survey of Hexham Manor.
The building contains bastle-type features but it cannot ever have been intended to be seriously defensible. The oldest part of the building measures 8.7m by 6.3m externally. It has a classic bastle doorway with draw bar tunnel, but the wall is only 0.6m thick and built of roughly coursed squared stone. The side walls are about 0.8m thick and have features such as two splayed slit vents in the bastle tradition.
The present building may be entirely post-bastle dating to the later 17th century, or a remodelling and partial rebuilding of a genuine bastle. (2)

The house is an interesting example of the continuance of bastle style features in a building that can never have been intended to be seriously defensible. The oldest part of the building is a rectangular block 8.7m by 6.3m externally, built into the hillside so that the first floor can be entered from ground level on the south and west.
The basement doorway is set centrally in the east gable, and has an almost semicircular arch cut into a megalithic lintel, and jambs each made up of two large and one shallow blocks; there is a narrow continuous chamfer on head and jambs, and a drawbar tunnel in the north jamb. This is a classic bastle doorway, but the wall material - roughly coursed and squared stone, and the thickness - only 0.61m - are atypical. The side walls of the block, at c.0.8m, are also a little thin for a true bastle although other features - the two splayed slit vents in the north wall, and the first floor carried on heavy close set transverse beams - are in the bastle tradition.
The slope of the site means that the external first floor doorway (now ruinous) on the south has probably always been entered from ground level. There are remains of windows to either side of the door; in the east gable are the remains of a central fireplace with a hooded stone stack, with to the south a chamfered single-light window and a mural cupboard. The attic above has been lit by two windows in the east gable, one south of the stack with a chamfered stone surround, and a small square one to the north with a timber frame. The surviving section of the coping of the east gable is of stones laid at a rather uneasy angle which might suggest that they had been reused from a gable of steeper pitch, although the remains of a fallen roof truss, of a simple principal rafter form with a collar point to a roof pitch of 45 degrees; both pitch and truss form are characteristic of a number of buildings in the area (eg Nine Dargue (NY 85 SW 9), Hayrake (NY 85 SE 1)).
There have been various secondary additions to the original house; a two storeyed block on the north (again with a non-domestic ground floor), a small external building at the south east corner and a small addition at the uphill (west) end. The first of these, which may be of early 19th century date, is the only part of the group to remain roofed. The surviving east gable of the original building is now in a very precarious condition.
Whilst documentary references show that there was a house on this site prior to the main bastle building period, it is not clear whether the present structure is entirely a post-bastle building of the later 17th century, or a remodelling and partial rebuilding of a genuine bastle, perhaps reusing its byre doorway in a new east gable. (3)

A programme of clearance and consolidation was carried out in 2009 and archaeological recording revealed that, despite having become overgrown with vegetation, most of the upstanding structure survived. (4)

Rowantree Stob is a ruined farmhouse, derived in the 17th century from a bastle, reputed to have been one of the earliest bastles built in Allendale. It lies on a steep slope near the bottom of a valley, so the first floor doorway could be entered from the hillside and there was no need for stairs. The walls remain to roof height in places, and a gable end exhibits a half-round headed ground level doorway.(5a)