Drumburgh Castle

Description

Tower House, now farmhouse. C13, licence to crenellate granted to Robert le Brun 24 August 1307. Alterations originally dated 1518 with initials and coat of arms of Thomas Lord Dacre over entrance; further alterations between 1678 and 1681 for John Aglionby and C19 additions. Extremely thick walls of squared and coursed red sandstone (from the nearby Roman Wall) on chamfered plinth, parapet over entrance with carved stone eagle finials; steeply pitched graduated greenslate roof with coped gables, brick chimney stacks. 3 storeys (formerly 4 storeys), 5 bays; single-storey single-bay extension to left. C19 gabled brick porch with Welsh slate roof; to right is a blocked round-headed C13 window. C13 blocked round-headed ground floor entrance is partly covered by C16 or C17 external stone steps to first floor. 1517 entrance; iron-studded oak plank door could be original (with later internal lock dated and inscribed J.L. 1681) in pointed-arched and chamfered surround with carved stone panel of arms above. Ground floor and first floor sash windows with glazing bars in enlarged C16 openings. Continuous row of blocked slit vents above. Second floor C16 2-light stone-mullioned windows now have Yorkshire sashes with mullions removed; blocked third floor windows slightly above and between these windows. Rear wall has similar windows and blocked windows. End wall right, which was in danger of collapse, was completely taken down in the late 1970's and rebuilt in facsimile, with broad central buttress and corbelled-out battlemented parapet, which may have been the remains of medieval crenellation. Floor levels of interior changed in C16 and C17: many original features will be covered by later plasterwork. First floor C17 wood-panelled room. Interior of rebuilt end is entirely of breeze blocks and open from floor to roof; roof of king-post trusses could be C16. (Listed Building Report)

Drumburgh Castle, a pre 1306 fortified Manor house (Peel), belonged to Robert le Brun who obtained licence to crenellate in 1307. A ditch to the West and South is probably the only surviving evidence for this building which was demolished and superseded in 1525 by the present building, partly rebuilt in 1681. Most of the masonry for the Castle seems to have been derived from the Roman Wall, and a Roman altar appears to be in (? built into) the outside doorway on the first floor. Drumburgh Castle formed a unit in the long line of English strongholds which guarded the Scottish Border, standing as it does, nearly opposite one of the fords across the Solway. (PastScape ref. McIntire 1929)

DRUMBURGH (NY 266597). Examination by P. Dixon and P. Borne of Drumburgh Castle has shown that the ground floor of Thomas Lord Dacre's early 16th-century stone house incorporates the ruins of a stone hall with blocked windows and an elaborate blocked door of early 13th-century character, presumed to be the remains of the manor house which Richard le Brun fortified after 1307. (Med. Arch. 1979)

March 1593. Note, by Auditor King, of castles and houses of defence adjoining Scotland, and within the West Borders, viz.:—
Drumburgh, neither castle nor tower, but a house of strength, six miles west and by north from Carlisle Castle, and two from Scotland, a very fit place for defence of that part of the Border. (Cal. S.P.Dom.)

Comments

Building with a complex history but in its current (basically C16) form resembles a superior bastle rather than anything else. However as a baronial status multi-storey building recorded in Gatehouse as a tower house.