Hepple
| Hepple | |
| Northumberland | |
|---|---|
 Hepple | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NT985005 |
| Location: | 55°17’55"N, 2°1’31"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 144 (2011) |
| Post town: | Morpeth |
| Postcode: | NE65 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Northumberland |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Berwick-upon-Tweed |
Hepple is a small village and parish in rural Northumberland, four miles west of Rothbury, which town provides most of its local services. It is on the road between Rothbury and Otterburn.
Hepple is in Coquetdale, on the bank of the River Coquet, and on the edge of the Northumberland National Park. During the War this was part of the 'Coquet Stop Line', prepared in case of a German invasion, and a pillbox from these defences can still be seen here.
Half a mile north-east of the village along the road to Rothbury are the ruins of Hepple Tower, a fourteenth-century tower house (which is listed as a 'building at risk'.[1]
A mile to the west, close to Holystone Grange (a country house), is Woodhouses Bastle, dated to 1602 and restored and re-roofed in the twentieth century, a well-preserved bastle which may have been converted from a pele tower.[2] A date of 1602 would make it one of the last, possibly the last, of the bastles, as the accession of King James I the next year brought peace to the Middle Shires.
References
- ↑ Hepple Tower – Register of Heritage at Risk (Historic England)
- ↑ Woodhouses Bastle House - British Listed Buildings
