Black Middens Bastle House Traditional Cache
Black Middens Bastle House
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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The cache is a small container with a logbook and pencil with a few trinkets. It could probably hold small trackables. It is located just off the foot path from a car park to the Black Middens Bastle House, although it is definitely not on, or in, the building itself, which is a scheduled ancient monument, or the ruins of the nearby house.
Black Middens is one of the best preserved examples of a bastle house which were fortified stone farmhouses, built during times when the border area between England and Scotland could be a dangerous place to live. During the 14th to 16th centuries, feuding between the Border clans was rife with Border Reivers from both sides of the Border murdering and stealing each other’s sheep and cattle.
By the mid-16th century bastle houses had been developed, the name coming from “bastille”, the French word for fortress. The houses consisted of two storeys, the upper one held the family and the ground floor was a vaulted chamber to contain animals which could be accessed via a trap door from the upper living quarters. Usually the structure, including the roof, would be built entirely in stone to resist fire although at Black Middens, where the walls are 1.4 metres thick, the upper floor had wooden beams. The doors would be narrow and access to the upper floor would be via a wooden ladder which could be pulled up behind the occupants. In more recent, safer, times this was replaced by a wider door and an external stone stair.
Next to the Black Middens site is the remains of an 18th century cottage built on the foundations of an older house, possibly an earlier bastle house.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Va gur ubyybj bs n gerr.
Treasures
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