Woodhouses Bastle

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The Redesdale riding family the Potts owned Woodhouses Bastle which has been restored by English Heritage and lies in fields near Holystone Grange, seven miles west of Rothbury.
Woodhouses boasts an impressive winding staircase to the upper floor and an arched vault in the basement with its strong stone walls up to five feet thick.
The initials of William and Bartholomew Pott and the date of 1602 are carved above the original entrance to the basement on the east gable.
In 1587 Nicholas Pott of nearby ‘Woodsyde’ put in a complaint against the Bold Buccleuch and his crew who’d stolen a grey horse, money, goods, burned houses and killed a man, while Lewis Pott of Trewhitt was raided by George and Henry Davison, William Mow and Thomas Young the same year.
Woodside is a couple of miles deeper into Redesdale and contains four isolated ruined bastles – The Raw, High Shaw, Iron House and Craig – but they are now within the bounds of the MOD ranges.
The Potts were embroiled in blood feuds with the Liddesdale families along with the rest of the Tyne and Redesdale riders which Sir John Forster dutifully attempted to put an end to in 1596.

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