Cardurnock 'Tower' (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Cardronock; Castlesteads; Anthorn

In the civil parish of Bowness.
In the historic county of Cumberland.
Modern Authority of Cumbria.
1974 county of Cumbria.
Medieval County of Cumberland.

OS Map Grid Reference: NY172588
Latitude 54.91708° Longitude -3.29264°

Cardurnock 'Tower' has been described as a Pele Tower although is doubtful that it was such, and also as a probable Bastle.

There are no visible remains.

Description

Post Medieval Bastle/Pele Tower. A tower is shown on the 1590 map by Burghley at Cardurnock. Site not located. (PastScape ref. Perriam and Robinson)

Castlesteads Fieldname possibly site of a medieval watch tower built over Roman Milecastle No. 5. (Jackson 1990)

Milecastle 5. Site lies within a disused wartime airfield, now farmed and under pasture. No trace. The evidence for an Elizabethan watch tower, based on a single sherd of 16th - 17th century glazed pottery is minimal; the classification of Medieval Watchtower has been removed from the record. (PastScape record 9609 ref. Keith Blood and Colin Lofthouse/10-MAR-1994/RCHME: Cumberland Coast Project.)

Comments

It is difficult to really known what the symbols on the 1590 map actually meant. They mainly refer to sites that are now lost and which were never gentry status sites. This suggests these were not pele towers. It is more likely they were some form of bastle or stonehouse. The lack of survival of such houses in this area, as opposed to their fairly frequent survival in the higher Pennine lands, may reflect the good agricultural quality of this land producing wealth (once the area was politically stabilised and decriminalised) which allowed for the building of brand new farmhouses and farmbuildings in the C18/C19.
The site of this tower is not located but is not Milecastle 5. Given map reference for Cardurnock hamlet.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 1389229; 9609.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 354 (Roman site).

Books
- Salter, Mike, 1998, The Castles and Tower Houses of Cumbria (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 99 (slight)
  Perriam, Denis and Robinson, John, 1998, The Medieval Fortified Buildings of Cumbria (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 29) p. 65
  Jackson, M.J.,1990, Castles of Cumbria (Carlisle: Carel Press) p. 97
Periodical Articles
- Simpson, F.G., Hodgson, K.S. and Richmond, I.A., 1947, 'The Coastal Mile-Fortlet at Cardurnock' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 47 p. 78, 127 (milecastle excavation) online copy
  Ellis, H., 1829, 'Copy of a manuscript tract addressed to Lord Burghley, illustrative of the Border topography of Scotland, AD 1590, with a platt or map of the Borders taken in the same year' Archaeologia Vol. 22 p. 161-71 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.)
- 1590, A Platt of the opposete Borders of Scotland to ye west marches of England (The Aglionby Platt) British Library online Gallery and Old Cumbria Gazetteer (see also Gatehouse Essay 'The Aglionby Platt')

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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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