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Breconside

Farmhouse (19th Century), Farmstead (19th Century), Tower House (Medieval)

Site Name Breconside

Classification Farmhouse (19th Century), Farmstead (19th Century), Tower House (Medieval)

Alternative Name(s) Brakenside; Breckonside Tower

Canmore ID 49732

Site Number NT10SW 2

NGR NT 10797 02191

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/49732

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Dumfries And Galloway
  • Parish Moffat
  • Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
  • Former District Annandale And Eskdale
  • Former County Dumfries-shire

Archaeology Notes

NT10SW 2 10797 02191

(NT 1079 0218) Breconside (NR)

OS 6" map, (1965)

Breconside, now a farmhouse, consists of an oblong tower originally built in the last decade of the 16th century (when it stood three storeys and a garret high; its roof level has since been lowered and the crowstepping removed). Alterations and additions were made in the 17th century. The N and E sides of the tower are little altered. A large semi-octagonal stair-tower was inserted in the W side in the 18th century, and large windows were opened on that side in the Victorian period, when a lower extension of a kitchen, two living rooms and a porch was also added. (The spelling of the name of this tower has been altered several times over the years - 'Breconside' was the version authorised in 1980.)

W A J Prevost 1980; RCAHMS 1920; N Tranter 1965

The original tower measures 10.8 m E-W by 6.8 m externally with walls 1.0 m to 1.5 m thick; the vaulted ground floor is divided into two rooms. There is a wheel-staircase in the W corner.

Visited by OS (DWR) 20 January 1972.

Breconside and remains of [NAT] Tower [NR]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1988.

Breckonside Tower. A 16th-century 3-storey tower-house with later alterations and remodelled, perhaps twice in the 19th century, with enlarged windows to S in regular 3-bay arrangement; a mid-19th-century low crow-stepped wing adjoins the E gable. The S elevation has been rendered as ashlar with ashlar margins, the remainder being exposed rubble. There is a full height central semi-octagonal stair turret with tall facetted roof, flanking bipartites at first floor level and single windows above, while a low porch links the turret to the E wing. There are brick end stacks and slated roofs. The ground floor is vaulted and the single openings to the N and S are both probably insertions; the gables and rear wall are otherwise blank except for some blocked openings. The wing has a corniced stack on a crow-stepped plinth over the E wall-head. The building is in neglected condition.

SDD List 1988 (listed 1971; visited 1987).

This small and much-altered tower-house in a valley 3 miles SE of Moffat is probably of late 16th century construction with 17th-century alterations and additions. Breckonside is now a farmhouse.

M Lindsay 1994.

Breconside. Rubble-built three-storey house, perhaps of the mid or later 17th century.

J Gifford 1996.

Activities

Field Visit (15 May 1990)

NT 1079 0218 NT10SW 2

Incorporated into Breconside farmhouse (18th-century and later), there are the remains of a 16th-century tower-house. Original features are confined to the basement of the house and comprise a vaulted chamber (8m from W to E by 4.4m transversely within walls 1.1m thick), later divided into two compartments by a cross-wall, and a newel-stair (blocked at first-floor level) in the SW angle. The entrance-doorway was adjacent to the stair in the S wall; its lintel remains, in reuse in an 18th-century casement window, and is wrought with a bullnosed moulding and internal check. To the interior, there is evidence of a blocked window in the W wall, an aumbry at the E end of the S wall, and there is a surviving original window in the N wall at ground level. The later house, although dilapidated, is distinguished by its panelling.

Original features include some 18th-century raised-and-fielded panelling (mainly in the window embrasures and shutters), skirting and cornices. 'Brakenside' is on record in 1590.

Visited by RCAHMS (IMS), 15 May 1990.

Listed as tower.

RCAHMS 1997.

Measured Survey (22 October 1990)

RCAHMS surveyed the tower house at Breconside on 22 October 1990 with plane-table and self-reducing alidade, producing a plan at a scale of 1:100.

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