Coquet Island Tower (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Coket Island Tower; Coketeland

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

OS Map Grid Reference: NU29290451
Latitude 55.33387° Longitude -1.53976°

Coquet Island Tower has been described as a certain Pele Tower, and also as a certain Fortified Ecclesiastical site.

There are masonry footings remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Description

An Early Medieval monastery was extant in 684 AD, and possibly destroyed circa 800 AD. A Benedictine cell was founded here in 1125 AD and dissolved in 1539. In the 15th century, the tower here was recorded as being a fortalice of Tynemouth Priory. A windmill was built on the site in the late 12th century but was destroyed in 1214. The cell consisted of an east-west 2-storey domestic range with an attached chapel to the east, with a north-west sacristy turret. A tower, perhaps originally detached, is to the south of the west end of domestic range. In 1841 a new dwelling block was built incorporating the undercroft of the domestic range, with a lobby linking it to the tower, the upper part of the tower was rebuilt to carry the lighthouse lantern. Possible remains of the priory are visible as eathworks on air photographs. (PastScape)

The monastic site on Coquet Island survives well within the 19th century buildings and is one of the few where the archaeology of the period can be readily appreciated by visitors. The incorporation of a tower into a small monastic site is unusual. It will aid research into the early Christian period in Northumbria.
The monument includes the site of a pre-Conquest monastic cell founded c.AD 684, and a pre-AD 1125 Benedictine foundation located on Coquet Island. The cell comprised a domestic range with a vaulted undercroft and a chapel attached to the east. It survives as an east-west range of medieval stone buildings, probably 15th century in date, which are incorporated into 19th century buildings associated with a lighthouse. To the south west stand the remains of a medieval tower which has been incorporated in the lighthouse tower. It is linked to the east-west range by a building of 1841. The medieval parts of the building can be differentiated externally from the 19th century work as only the latter are now whitewashed. (Scheduling Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1014734, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 24613
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1371130
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 7979.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) N5591.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- A History of Coquet Island
Books
- Harrison, Peter, 2004, Castles of God (Woodbridge; Boydell Press) p. 67
  Brooke, C.J., 2000, Safe Sanctuaries (Edinburgh; John Donald) p. 154-5
  Dodds, John F., 1999, Bastions and Belligerents (Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Publishing) p. 210, 470
  Salter, Mike, 1997, The Castles and Tower Houses of Northumberland (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 38
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 200 (slight)
  Rowland, T.H., 1987 (reprint1994), Medieval Castles, Towers, Peles and Bastles of Northumberland (Sandhill Press) p. 53
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 330
  Graham, Frank, 1976, The Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Frank Graham) p. 114-5
  Knowles, David and Hadcock, R Neville, 1971, Medieval religious houses in England and Wales (Longman) p. 471
  Long, B., 1967, Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) p. 87
  Pevsner, N., 1957, Buildings of England: Northumberland (London, Penguin) p. 129
  Hodgson, John Crawford (ed), 1899, Northumberland County History (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) Vol. 5 p. 315-24 (plan) online copy
  Bates, C.J., 1891, Border Holds of Northumberland (London and Newcastle: Andrew Reid) p. 19 (Also published as the whole of volume 14 (series 2) of Archaeologia Aeliana view online)
Periodical Articles
- Ryder, Peter, 2012, 'Surveying the Monastic Cell' Archaeology in Northumberland Vol. 21 p. 6-8 online copy
  Bates, C.J., 1891, 'Border Holds of Northumberland' Archaeologia Aeliana (ser2) Vol. 14 p. 19 online copy
  (Longstaffe, W. H. D.), 1865, 'Runic Ring from Coquet Island' Archaeologia Aeliana (ser2) Vol. 6 p. 195
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
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- English Heritage, 2014, Heritage at Risk Register 2014 North East (London: English Heritage) p. vi online copy (On removal from register)
  English Heritage, 2013, Heritage at Risk Register 2013 North East (London: English Heritage) p. 15 online copy
  English Heritage, 2012, Heritage at Risk Register 2012 North East (London: English Heritage) p. 29 online copy
  English Heritage, 2011, Heritage at Risk Register 2011 North East (London: English Heritage) p. 28 online copy
  English Heritage, 2010, Heritage at Risk Register 2010 North East (London: English Heritage) p. 27 online copy
  English Heritage, 2009, Heritage at Risk Register 2009 North East (London: English Heritage) p. 36 online copy
  Gething, P., Young, G., 2007, Coquet Island Lighthouse, Northumberland. Report of archaeological
  monitoring and building recording (Bamburgh Research Project BRP 06/04) online copy

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.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER	Scheduling	Listing	I. O. E.
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