Barrow Peel

Barrow Peel was a modest tower, perhaps associated with an undefended hall, and survives as a rectangular raised platform to the west of abandoned later farm buildings in upper Coquetdale. The location is remote, about a mile upstream of Harbottle Castle. A short distance upstream of the site is Barrow Scar, the steep southern side of a narrow ravine which the Coquet flows through. The occupants of Barrow were amongst those tasked with watching the passage of the valley in 1552.

The 1541 survey of border defences states that at Barrow, “standeth the olde walles of a lytle fortresse of the Inherytance of one Gerrard Barrowe which in tyme past was brounte and rased by the Scottes Ln a warre tyme. And so remaineth still waste because the oweners thereof have bene but poor men and not able nor of power sythens to reparrell the same” which says little other than the tower existed in the early 16th century and had been destroyed during cross border raids prior to 1541. There is no evidence to suggest that it was ever brought back into repair, and the Historic Environment Record states that the masonry was reused to build the farm steading that sits adjacent today.