Kilham Stronghouse
Towards the end of the 19th century, Bates (1891, 53-4) reported that a ‘strong house’ had recently been destroyed at Kilham. Bates’ comments imply that he himself had not seen the structure, but it was reported to closely resemble, on a smaller scale, the bastle house at Doddington. This probably represents the same structure which the surveyor Henry MacLauchlan refers to as ‘a Pele tower’. The ruins of this structure had been taken down a few years before MacLauchlan wrote, although the foundation stones still remained at that stage (MacLauchlan 1867, 35). His description suggests the building stood on the towards the north end of the village.
The Doddington bastle house has itself suffered partial collapse since Bates wrote, but was sufficiently well-recorded to preserve a clear understanding of its original appearance (Knowles 1899; cf. NCH XIV (1935) 155-9; Cathcart King 1983, 358). Doddington was a substantial three-storey building, oblong in plan with a stair-turret projecting midway along one of the long sides, which were also furnished with crenelated parapets. Strong houses of this kind perhaps first emerged in the early 16th Century and were beginning to replace the tower as the gentry’s fortified dwelling of choice towards the end of the century (cf. Pevsner et al. 2002, 63-4).
It has been suggested that the construction of this fortified dwelling was a response to Bowes and Ellerker’s recommendation (Bates 1891, 53), although the evidence is not altogether conclusive. The common assumption that the stronghouse was built prior to 1584, rests on the fact that ‘Kellum’ figures, along with neighbouring townships such as Westnewton, Kirknewton, and Akeld, on the ‘plat or carte’ produced in that year by Christopher Dacre to show the line of his proposed defensive ditch along ‘the plenished ring of the borders’ (Bates 1891, 53; NCH XI (1922), 169; Long 1967, 128).
However Dacre’s plan does not actually depict or identify any fortification at Kilham. The explanatory document which Dacre attached to the ‘plat or carte’ indicates that the map was intended to show the particular castles and towers which the Border Commissioners had recommended be repaired, the general areas where four new fortresses should be established and, thirdly, ‘by what towns and places the new devised dike or defence is to go, which is to pass through the said East and Middle Marches along the plenished ring of the borders . . .’ Dacre uses two distinct symbols on the plat.
One clearly represents a crenelated tower (expanded and elaborated in the case of the larger castles) whilst the other, composed of one or two rows of houses, is probably intended to signify a well-populated (‘plenished’) village settlement. Kilham falls in the latter category. There is no indication either in his accompanying letter, the explanatory document or the captions on the actual plan that all the sites shown were meant to represent fortifications. Indeed it is explicitly stated that some represented ‘towns and places’ (i.e. village townships).
In all but a couple of cases (Carham and Ingram) the tower sites are specifically labelled as such, e.g. ‘Wooler towre’, ‘Bittelsden towre’ or whatever. Conversely none of the settlement symbols is labelled a tower (although settlements are sometimes shown alongside the towers). Instead the name of the township is simply given. This does not necessarily imply that there were no fortifications in these ‘towns’ in 1584 - we know that there were in the cases of Alnham, Kirknewton and Akeld for instance - but it does mean that the appearance of one of these settlements on the plat cannot be used as evidence for the existence of such a fortification.
Thus the stronghouse at Kilham could have been built late in the 16th century, or even in the early 17th century, rather than the years following the 1541 survey, as might have been assumed. The example at Doddington, which the Kilham stronghouse was said to resemble, is shown by a datestone to have been built as late as 1584. The Kilham stronghouse could quite conceivably be roughly contemporary and form part of a continual process of residential fortification along the border, rather than a specific response to an official directive.