Carham Pele Tower (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Carrame

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

OS Map Grid Reference: NT798384
Latitude 55.63888° Longitude -2.32394°

Carham Pele Tower has been described as a certain Pele Tower.

There are no visible remains.

Comments

Sometimes suggested as being Shidlaw Tower and located at the site of Carham Hall. It is likely there was just one tower despite there being two PastScape records although Dodds implies two separate sites although he mentions a watch tower on Shildaw hill (at NT807380) rather than the Carham Hall site on the bank of the River Tweed. Arguably it might be more expected and useful to the villages as an emergency refuge if it was near to the church (at given map reference) rather than the site at Carham Hall half a mile from the village, especially since, at times of war, they were to resort to Wark Castle, just another mile away, as their place of refuge.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 1388144.
Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record.

Books
- Dodds, John F., 1999, Bastions and Belligerents (Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Publishing) p. 35
  Graham, Frank, 1993, Northumberian Castles Aln, Tweed and Till (Butler Publishing) p. 7
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 346
  Graham, Frank, 1976, The Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Frank Graham) p. 97
  Long, B., 1967, Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) p. 78
  Vickers, Kenneth H. (ed), 1922, Northumberland County History (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) Vol. 11 p. 23-4 online copy
  Bates, C.J., 1891, Border Holds of Northumberland (London and Newcastle: Andrew Reid) p. 28-30 (Also published as the whole of volume 14 (series 2) of Archaeologia Aeliana view online)
  Parson, Wm., 1828, History, Directory, and Gazetteer, of the Counties of Durham and Northumberland (W. White and co) p. 496 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Bates, C.J., 1891, 'Border Holds of Northumberland' Archaeologia Aeliana (ser2) Vol. 14 p. 28-30 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.)
- 1541, View of the Castles, Towers, Barmekyns and Fortresses of the Frontier of the East and Middle Marches Survey of the East and Middle Marches
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 344
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1910, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 5 p. 67 online copy

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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.

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