Cowdenknowes House, Old Tower

128. Tower on River-bank, Cowdenknowes.

Some 90 feet to the south of the mansion-house, and situated on the steeply sloping riverbank, is the ruined basement of a small tower which appears to contain four apartments, the whole measuring some 32 feet by 15 feet within walls not exceeding 4 feet in thickness. At a depth of about 14 feet from the top of the bank a square-headed doorway in the north-west wall gives access to a small vaulted apartment measuring some 11 feet by 7 feet 6 inches, lighted by a narrow window at the south-west angle, and having a trap-door formed in the stone floor. This trapdoor appears to have been the only means of access to a lower chamber or dungeon which has extended for a distance of about 11 feet beyond the south-east wall of the small entrance chamber above. Beneath the level of this lower chamber there is said to be yet another dungeon with a similar means of access from above. To the north-east of the small entrance chamber, a lid entered directly from it, is an irregularly shaped vaulted apartment measuring 18 feet 6 inches by 15 feet. It is lighted by two narrow windows in the south-east wall and has a curious double recess at the southern angle. The interior dimensions of a fourth apartment contained in the projecting south-west angle cannot be determined, as no means of access is now to be seen. It is therefore supposed that it may have been served by a trap-door with access from an upper-floor level. The top of the tower walls are now finished with a modern stone balustrade, the space so enclosed being level with the lawn to the south-east of the mansion-house. The arrangement of the two dungeons, entering one off the other by means of trap-doors formed in the stone vaults, is very exceptional. It seems probable that the natural formation of the ground suggested the arrangement adopted. Judging by the style of the masonry and the thickness of the walls, this tower is probably contemporaneous with the earliest portions incorporated in the mansion-house.

See Cast. and Dom. Arch., iii. p. 425 (illus.); Ber. Nat. Club,1863-68, p. 268.

OS Map: Ber., xxx. NW.

RCAHMS 1915, visited 15th April 1912.