Details

The monument includes a medieval farmstead on the west bank of Marl Beck,
slightly south of a stile in the east wall of Elphatory Allotment. The
farmstead consists of the remains of a long building with a garth on one side,
just west of the modern allotment wall; the fragmentary remains of two small
buildings; and a fourth building partly underlying the modern allotment wall.
The long building measures 16m by 7.5m and its walls consist of earth and
stone banks 1.5m to 2m wide and up to 0.5m high. The walls of the garth are
also earth and stone banks up to 2m wide and survive to a height of 0.4m. Two
short lengths of similar banks run westwards from the north west and south
west corners of the garth and may originally have formed part of a wider field
system connected with the farmstead.
The small buildings measure 5m by 7m and 8m by 9m, and have similar walls to
the larger building. The building under the allotment wall measures 12m by
10m, and protrudes on both sides of the wall. A short stretch of track leads
up from the public footpath by the stream, to this building.
The modern allotment wall is excluded from the monument, although the ground
beneath it is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Medieval rural settlements in England were marked by great regional diversity
in form, size and type, and the protection of their archaeological remains
needs to take these differences into account. To do this, England has been
divided into three broad Provinces on the basis of each area's distinctive
mixture of nucleated and dispersed settlements. These can be further divided
into sub-Provinces and local regions, possessing characteristics which have
evolved gradually during the past 1500 years or more.
This monument lies in the Northern Pennines sub-Province of the Northern and
Western Province, an area characterised from the Middle Ages by dispersed
settlements, with some nucleations in more favoured areas. The sub-Province is
formed by discontinuous high moorland landscapes; agricultural settlement has
been episodic, in response to the economic fortunes of adjacent sub-Provinces.
Other settlements have been associated with the extraction of stone and other
minerals.

In some areas of medieval England settlement was dispersed across the
landscape rather than nucleated into villages. Such dispersed settlement in an
area, usually a township or parish, is defined by the lack of a single (or
principal) nucleated settlement focus such as a village and the presence
instead of small settlement units (small hamlets or farmsteads) spread across
the area. These small settlements normally have a degree of interconnection
with their close neighbours, for example, in relation to shared common land or
road systems. Dispersed settlements varied enormously from region to region,
but where they survive as earthworks their distinguishing features include
roads and other minor tracks, platforms on which stood houses and other
buildings such as barns, enclosed crofts and small enclosed paddocks. In areas
where stone was used for building, the outline of building foundations may
still be clearly visible. Communal areas of the settlements frequently include
features such as bakehouses, pinfolds and ponds. Areas of dispersed medieval
settlement are found in both the South Eastern Province and the Northern and
Western Province of England. They are found in upland and also some lowland
areas. Where found, their archaeological remains are one of the most important
sources of understanding about rural life in the five or more centuries
following the Norman Conquest.
The medieval farmstead 390m south of Lodge Sike is well-preserved and will add
to the sum of knowledge relating to medieval land use and settlement in the
North Pennines.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Coggins, D, 'Upper Teesdale the archaeology of a North Pennine Valley' in Upper Teesdale The Archaeology Of A North Pennine Valley, , Vol. 150, (1986), 95

Source: Historic England