Carlisle Bishops Tower (The Gatehouse Record)

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

OS Map Grid Reference: NY398559
Latitude 54.89449° Longitude -2.93921°

Carlisle Bishops Tower has been described as a certain Pele Tower.

There are no visible remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

The Bishop's Tower was thought to have stood at the West side of the Cathedral precincts, and was built sometime in the 14th century. There were a number of Bishops of Carlisle during the 14th century: John de Halton, William Ayremyn, John Ross, John Kirkby, John Horncastle, Gilbert Welton, Thomas Appleby, Robert Reed and Thomas Merke.....any one of which could have been responsible for the building of the tower.
The tower was still standing in 1620, but was definitely gone by 1640, possibly demolished along with other redundant priory buildings. An inventory of Cathedral buildings dating from 1571, lists "for the Busshopp In the towr....in the Kytching and larder", a mention that Perriam and Robinson state, shows that the tower was in use at this time.
No archaeological investigations in the Cathedral precincts have located the exact position of this long lost tower. (Matthew Emmott 2014)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1007074, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number cu546
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 5309.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Matthew Emmott's Castle Blog
  Old Cumbria Gazetteer
Books
- Perriam, Denis and Robinson, John, 1998, The Medieval Fortified Buildings of Cumbria (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 29) p. 77
  Wilson, J., 1912, Rose Castle (Carlisle) p. 22, appendix xv
Periodical Articles
- Perriam, D.R., 1987, 'The demolition of the Priory of St Mary, Carlisle' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 87 p. 127-58 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.)
- Prescott, J.E. (ed), 1879, The statutes of the cathedral church of Carlisle p. 107 (Inventory of 1571 mentions tower)

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.

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