Kirkwhelpington Vicars Pele (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Kirkwhelpington Vicarage, Kyrke Whelpyngton

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

OS Map Grid Reference: NY99608442
Latitude 55.15413° Longitude -2.00774°

Kirkwhelpington Vicars Pele has been described as a certain Pele Tower.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

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

Description

A survey of 1541 refers to a 'little' tower at Kirkwhelpington as being in good repair and as being the mansion of the vicarage (Bates 1891).
The remains of the tower are incorporated into the present kitchen of the vicarage the east wall of which is 5 feet thick and rises to a height of 20 feet (Hodgson 1827).
NY 99608442 The Vicarage shows no external traces of antiquity but the wall on the east side of what is now the dining room has a thickness of 1.3m (F1 EG 16-APR-1956).
Kirkwhelpington Vicarage. Grade II listed building. House, formerly a vicarage. 18th century with older core. Largely rebuilt in mid-18th century by Rev William Ellison. Interior has one wall about 5ft thick said to be a remnant of a former tower (Listed Building Report).

Kirkwhelpington Old Vicarage was the former home of Rev John Hodgson where he wrote his County History.
Externally the house appears as a five bay, two storey, block with a rear wing flanked by outshuts. The western two bays appear in fact to represent the tower referred to in 1541 as being 'the mansion of the vicarage' and 'in good repair'. All that visibly survives of the tower is its east wall, now the internal division between the kitchen and the central stair; it is 1.2m thick and rises the full height of the house. No old features are exposed in the wall; it is set at a slightly skew angle to the body of the house, and the jambs of the doorway through it into the kitchen are also set skew.
The front wall of this part of the house is an 18th century rebuild. The north and west walls are only c.0.6m thick, and their fabric is concealed; if they do incorporate pre-18th century masonry they must have been thinned down. Hodgson's History of Northumberland attributes the mid 18th century remodelling to Nathaniel Ellison. The house was extended to the east in 1760, the rear wing added in 1769 and the old tower converted into the kitchen in 1771 (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1044918
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 1160854; 19416.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) N9554.

Books
- Harrison, Peter, 2004, Castles of God (Woodbridge; Boydell Press) p. 67
  Dodds, John F., 1999, Bastions and Belligerents (Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Publishing) p. 242
  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. 51
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 336
  Graham, Frank, 1976, The Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Frank Graham) p. 223
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Long, B., 1967, Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) p. 129
  Bates, C.J., 1891, Border Holds of Northumberland (London and Newcastle: Andrew Reid) p. 46 (Also published as the whole of volume 14 (series 2) of Archaeologia Aeliana view online)
  Hodgson, J., 1827, History of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) Part 2 Vol. 1 p. 188-9n and 205-6 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Bates, C.J., 1891, 'Border Holds of Northumberland' Archaeologia Aeliana (ser2) Vol. 14 p. 46 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
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Ryder, P.F., 1994-5, Towers and Bastles in Northumberland Part 4 Tynedale District Vol. 2 p. 113

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

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