West Loups Farmstead, Cotherstone Moor
High on the open moorland above Teesdale, the ruins of West Loups Farmstead on Cotherstone Moor near Barnard Castle sit quietly among rough grass, old walls and wide views. At first glance it can look like just another abandoned upland ruin, but this is one of those places where the deeper you look, the more history begins to appear.
West Loups is not simply a ruined farm. Historic England records it as a Scheduled Monument, protecting not only the visible remains of the later farmstead, but also an earlier medieval settlement and prehistoric carved rocks within the site. That means this quiet patch of Cotherstone Moor holds traces of people living, farming and leaving their mark on the landscape across thousands of years.
What survives today is a mix of collapsed buildings, enclosure walls, earthworks and scattered stone, all set within a landscape that still feels remote and weather-shaped. It is exactly the kind of place that makes Cotherstone Moor so fascinating. Nothing shouts here. The history is woven into the ground.
The visible ruins are mainly associated with the later farm at West Loups, thought to be of 17th-century date, but the story goes back much further. Beneath and around the later remains lie traces of a medieval farmstead enclosure, while the carved rocks hint at prehistoric activity long before any farmhouse was built here. Few places on the moor show such a clear layering of human history in one small area.
That long story also helps explain why West Loups matters. It is not just a photogenic ruin in a nice view. It is a nationally important historic site that helps tell the story of how people once lived on these high Teesdale moors, how settlements changed over time, and how older sacred or symbolic places may have continued to shape later landscapes.
A farmstead in a hard landscape
Life at West Loups would never have been easy. Even on a bright day, the site feels exposed. The land opens in every direction, with long distances, rough pasture and only a few buildings breaking the skyline. In winter, or in poor weather, it must have felt far more isolated still.
Small upland farmsteads like this were part of the working landscape of the Pennines. Families lived with livestock, built shelter where they could, and made use of every practical enclosure around them. The remains at West Loups still suggest that working arrangement. You can pick out walls, ruined buildings and rough divisions in the ground that once helped shape daily life here.
Yet what makes West Loups especially interesting is that it was not built on empty land. The later farm reused a much older site. Historic England notes that the remains of the medieval enclosure can still be traced, even though the later farm buildings obscure part of it. In other words, this was a place worth returning to.
A site with much older roots
The medieval enclosure at West Loups survives as slight earthworks and banks around the later ruins. Historic England describes a bank that is more substantial to the north of the buildings, with other sections visible around the site, and a possible entrance at the north-east corner. There are also traces of earlier structural phases, including a narrow stony rectangular bank and parallel banks that may represent an earlier building or route into the farmstead.
That might sound technical on paper, but on the ground it gives the site real depth. West Loups was not just one farmhouse built and abandoned. It developed. It changed. It was altered by different people at different times, each leaving a layer behind.
This is one of the reasons the site is scheduled. Even where little stands above ground, buried archaeology is expected to survive well below the surface. So although the ruins feel quiet and incomplete now, the site still holds a lot of evidence about past settlement in this part of Teesdale.
Prehistoric carvings on the moor
Then there are the carved rocks.
Within the enclosure at West Loups are prehistoric carved stones, linking the site to a much older world. Historic England records one carved rock on the south side of the later farmhouse, with two cups, and another a short distance north of one of the later buildings, with at least seven cups, two rings and a groove.
These are part of the wider tradition of cup-and-ring rock art found across northern England. They are generally dated to the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, and although their exact meaning remains unknown, they are widely seen as one of the most intriguing forms of prehistoric art in Britain.
That mystery is part of their power. They remind you that long before medieval farmers built walls here, other people were already using and marking this landscape. Whether these carvings had ritual, symbolic or territorial meaning, they show that West Loups was part of human experience thousands of years before the farmstead ruins we see today.
The Wider Moorland Landscape
West Loups does not stand alone on Cotherstone Moor. The ruins form part of a much wider upland landscape shaped by farming, travel routes and centuries of changing land use.
Across the surrounding moor are the remains of old boundaries, ruined farmsteads and scattered archaeological sites that show how people once lived and worked in this high country. Although the landscape can appear empty at first glance, it holds traces of many different periods of activity.
Historic farms such as East Loups and West Loups once stood in the middle of this open moorland, separated from the villages of Teesdale by distance, weather and rough ground. Yet they were still connected to a network of tracks and routes that crossed the hills between Teesdale and the Stainmore Gap.
Today the moor feels quiet and remote, but the landscape still preserves evidence of those earlier lives. Prehistoric carved stones, medieval settlement remains and later farming ruins all sit within the same wide setting, helping tell the story of how this part of Teesdale has been used and re-used across thousands of years.
Military use and later decline
The later decline of West Loups is also part of its story. Keys to the Past records the site as a small stone farmstead, probably 17th century in date, overlying a medieval settlement. It also notes that it was once thatched with heather, that it burned down in the 1920s, and that it was later destroyed by the army, with only the privy left standing at the time of that record.
The Teesdale Mercury material adds useful context to the wider Battle Hill area during the 20th century, showing how this landscape became associated with military training. That helps explain why these moorland farmsteads were left behind and why the area today still carries that sense of disconnection from ordinary modern life.
It is one of those strange twists of history that military use can damage a place and yet also help preserve the wider landscape around it from development. At West Loups, the result is a ruin that still sits within a remarkably open and historic setting.
Important access information
West Loups lies on land associated with the Battle Hill military training area. Because of that, anyone exploring the wider moorland must treat the area with care and common sense.
If red flags or warning lights are displayed, you must not enter. Before heading onto the moor, check the official MOD Battle Hill range information to see whether the training area is active.
Because this is a protected archaeological site within sensitive moorland, this page focuses on the history of West Loups rather than giving detailed visiting directions. The site is best understood as part of the wider Cotherstone Moor walk and heritage landscape.
Surviving Structure at the Farmstead
One of the most striking surviving pieces of West Loups is this small standing structure among the ruins. It gives the site real character and makes the farmstead feel more human and immediate, turning scattered archaeology into something closer to a place where people once lived and worked.
Stonework and Enclosure Walls
The old walls around West Loups still help define the shape of the site, with ruined boundaries and enclosure lines running through the grass. These remains show how the farm was organised, separating buildings, yards and grazing areas in a landscape where walls mattered for both shelter and survival.
West Loups Farmstead Across the Moor
From a distance, West Loups looks almost swallowed by the moor. The low ruins sit quietly in the grass, with wide open country stretching far beyond them. It is a view that captures the isolation of the site and helps explain why farming here would always have been hard, weather-shaped work.
A Building Near West Loups
This nearby stone building shows the sort of simple, practical architecture that belongs to the wider moorland landscape around West Loups. It helps place the ruins in context, reminding us that these uplands were once part of a working farming world rather than the empty-looking moorland many people see today.
Goldsborough on the Skyline
The striking shape of Goldsborough rises clearly above the surrounding moor, giving this part of Teesdale one of its most recognisable skylines. Landmarks like this help make sense of the wider setting of West Loups, where ruined farmsteads, ancient boundaries and open high ground all belong to the same historic landscape.
The Main Ruins of West Loups
Seen more closely, the heart of West Loups reveals collapsed walls, broken stonework and the outlines of former buildings. These visible remains belong largely to the later farmstead, probably of 17th-century date, built within an older enclosed site that had already been occupied centuries before.
Why West Loups matters
What makes West Loups so special is not just one thing on its own. It is the combination.
It is the way a later upland farm sits within an older medieval enclosure. It is the way prehistoric carved stones survive inside that same site. It is the way the moorland setting still feels big, exposed and only lightly changed by the modern world. And it is the way all of those layers come together in one place without needing to be over-explained.
For anyone interested in Teesdale history, upland farming, archaeology or the hidden stories of the moors, West Loups is one of those places that proves how much depth can lie behind a few ruined walls.