Mervinslaw Pele
| Mervinslaw Pele | |
|
Roxburghshire | |
|---|---|
 Mervinslaw Pele | |
| Type: | Bastle house |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NT67171173 |
| Location: | 55°23’55"N, 2°31’11"W |
| History | |
| Built Prob. 16th century | |
| Information | |
| Condition: | Roofless |
Mervinslaw Pele, also known as 'Mervinslaw Tower' and 'Mervinslaw Peel House' is a bastle house or pele tower on the south slope of Mervins Law in Roxburghshire. It is small, oblong in form, and standing to two storeys and a garret in height.
The roof is gone and it has passed centuries without repair, but it is otherwise intact.
The house is believed to date from the sixteenth century, built of roughly coursed rubble, set in clay, all material won locally: there are contemporary quariies close by.
Mervinslaw Pele is of a smiliar design to other bastle houses of the Middle Shires, It is 25 feet 6½ long and 21 feet 1 inch wide, with walls four feet thick. There is a ground floor entrance is in the south-east wall, but the first floor would have been reached by an external ladder or forestair abutting on the south-west wall, as there is an entrance in this wall.
In the grounds there have been found the foundations of an oblong building which would have been 24 feet by 13 feet with walls three feet thick.
The remaining house is a scheduled ancient monument.