Kirkley Tower (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Turris de Kirklawe

In the civil parish of Ponteland.
In the historic county of Northumberland.
Modern Authority of Northumberland.
1974 county of Northumberland.
Medieval County of Northumberland.

OS Map Grid Reference: NZ15017720
Latitude 55.08911° Longitude -1.76598°

Kirkley Tower has been described as a certain Pele Tower.

There are no visible remains.

Description

(Marginal) A list of 1415 refers to a tower at Kirkley in the possession of Sir William Eure (Bates 1891).
Mr. E. J. Hetterington, Principal of the Farm Institute, now housed in Kirkley Hall, has no knowledge of the tower, or of its site. There are no traces of one in the vicinity of Kirkley Hall (F1 ASP 02-MAR-56).
The tower was built shortly before 1415 by Sir William Eure, and a manor house was added to it later. These were demolished by Cuthbert Ogle who replaced them with Kirkley Hall in 1764 (Dodds 1999). (PastScape)

Comments

Called a Turris in the 1415 list but high up on the list which is roughly ordered by the size and importance of the buildings and/or important of owners. The Eure's were a major knightly family with holdings in Yorkshire and Northumberland but didn't become baronial until the C16. Kirkley was not the main holding of the family. The form of the tower is not known but the vague description of a manor house being added to it made, without citation, by Dodds, might suggest this manor house was a replacement for an earlier unfortified hall and the tower was a solar tower attached to that hall. The fact that nothing now remains of the tower may also suggest a smaller tower. It may have originally been to the south of the present hall.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 23097.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) N10929.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Wikipedia entry
  Kirkley Hall - the past to date
Books
- Dodds, John F., 1999, Bastions and Belligerents (Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Publishing) p. 258
  Salter, Mike, 1997, The Castles and Tower Houses of Northumberland (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 71
  Rowland, T.H., 1987 (reprint1994), Medieval Castles, Towers, Peles and Bastles of Northumberland (Sandhill Press) p. 75
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 350
  Graham, Frank, 1976, The Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Frank Graham) p. 222
  Long, B., 1967, Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle) p. 130
  Dodds, Madeleine Hope (ed), 1926, Northumberland County History (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) Vol. 12 p. 495 (not much use)
  Bates, C.J., 1891, Border Holds of Northumberland (London and Newcastle: Andrew Reid) p. 16 (Also published as the whole of volume 14 (series 2) of Archaeologia Aeliana view online)
  Hodgson, J., 1820, History of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) Part 3 Vol. 1 p. 28 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Bates, C.J., 1891, 'Border Holds of Northumberland' Archaeologia Aeliana (ser2) Vol. 14 p. 16 online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- 1415, Nomina Castrorum et Fortaliciorum infra Comitatum Northumbrie online transcription

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

Data >	PastScape	County HER
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio