Tower near Biddeford (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Abbotsham.
In the historic county of Devonshire.
Modern Authority of Devon.
1974 county of Devon.
Medieval County of Devon.

OS Map Grid Reference: SS423256
Latitude 51.00863° Longitude -4.25177°

Tower near Biddeford has been described as a Masonry Castle but is rejected as such.

There are no visible remains.

Description

The remains of a keep or watch tower, supposed to be the work of the ancient Britons, lies two miles from Bideford on the road to Hartland (The 2nd mile-post from Bideford is at SS 42332567).
Davidson amassed a quantity of information from various sources for which there is no substantiating evidence.
There is nothing to be seen in the vicinity of the second milestone from Bideford, but it is possible he was referring to the old windmill site (SS 42 NW 15) nearby (Davidson 1861; F1 NVQ 05-DEC-80). (PastScape)

Comments

Davidson was clearly working from King, where the 'keep' is briefly described and illustrated. Although King attributes the 'tower' to the ancient Britons here compares it with Saffron Walden castle. The illustration shows a building said to be about 14 feet in diameter about 5m high with a rough ground floor doorway described in the text as 'rude breach' and said to have walls 'near 5 feet thick.' It also said to have an inset on the inner wall to support an upper floor.
Norman Quinell's supposition that this was a description of "An 'Old Wind Mill' at Abbotsham Cross (SS 42102063 (sic is SS42102563 meant?)) shown on Donn's Map of 1765." seems reasonable but is not proven.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 33105; 33100.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MDV11733.

Books
- Davidson, James, 1861, Notes on the antiquities of Devon before the Norman Conquest p. 16
  King, Edward, 1804, Munimenta antiqua or Observations on antient castles (W.Bulmer and Co) Vol. 3 p. 122 online copy
  Donn, Benjamin, 1765, A Map of the County of Devon 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.

Data >	PastScape	County HER
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