Skulferatu #128 - Phantassie Doocot, Phantassie, East Linton

‘Come to see victory

In a land called fantasy

Loving life, a new degree

Bring your mind to everlasting liberty…’

 

So sang Earth Wind and Fire in their disco banger, Fantasy, and it was off to a land called Phantassie that I headed today.  Well, when I say land, I mean a couple of fields and a farm.  I also wasn’t seeking the impossible goal of victory and liberty, but rather was looking to find a luxurious dwelling house for pigeons.

 

Wandering through and out of the town of East Linton I came to a rather fabulous and bent looking old building, Preston Mill.  This stone building with a red tiled roof looking a bit like some witch’s cap is an old watermill that was in the past used for grinding down, milling, grain.  The present building probably dates from around the 18^th century, though it is believed that a mill has stood on the site from sometime before 1599.

 

Preston Mill

 

Preston Mill by the River Tyne

 

Strolling past and over the River Tyne, I made my way down through Phantassie on a gentle path that led me through some fields to the Doocot.  Around me birds sang, and a gentle wind made the wires on the telegraph poles hum in a low meditative way.

 

Path down to Phantassie Doocot

 

So, you may wonder, how did Phantassie get its name?  Some say it comes from the Gaelic for a gentle and damp slope, but as Gaelic was not really spoken around here that seems unlikely.  Others say that it is a made up name coming from the French ‘fantaisie’ (fantasy) and point out that in 1654 the area was recorded as Trapren. By 1800 it did however have the name Phantassie, which was sometimes spelt with a ‘ph’ and at others with an ‘f’.

 

Arriving at Phantassie Doocot I found it to be quite a strange looking little building, with one side having the appearance of a series of concrete collapsed hats designed by some brutalist architect, and the other, with its sloping tiled roof and entry holes looking more like a little fortress.

 

Phantassie Doocot

 

View of Phantassie Doocot

 

Phantassie Doocot

 

Sloping roof of the doocot

 

Entrance holes for the pigeons

 

The Doocot was built sometime in the Sixteenth Century and is a Beehive Doocot with five hundred nesting places inside.  It is unusual in its design in that it has a horseshoe parapet with a sloping south facing roof that would protect the birds from the wind.  This is a design that was popular in the south of France, so it may be that the designer or builder had some connection there. 

 

Doocots or Dovecotes were introduced to Britain by the Normans in the Eleventh Century and were basically buildings designed for pigeons to nest in.  These nesting houses were not built for altruistic reasons, but rather that during the winter months pigeons were seen as a good source of fresh meat.  By building a place for hundreds of them to gather and nest it made it easy to gather them, and their eggs, up to eat.

 

There was, of course, one big problem with the pigeons in the Doocots, and that was the amount of grain they could eat.  Something that didn’t bother the landowner who owned the Doocot, as he got the plump juicy birds to eat, but his tenant farmers would often have to watch in despair as the pigeons munched away at their crops.

 

While watched by some nesting pigeons, and a couple of inquisitive crows, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me in a gap in the stonework of the Doocot.

 

Skulferatu #128

 

Skulferatu #128 in a gap in the stonework of the doocot

 

Skulferatu #128 in a gap in the stonework of the doocot

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #128

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 55.987858

Longitude -2.647786

 

what3words: hunk.collapsed.blush

 

I used the following sources for information on Phantassie Doocot –

 

East Lothian

by Thomas Scott Muir

1915

 

Preston Mill and Phantassie Doocot

National Trust for Scotland

by Clare White and Gillian Simison

2012