Kirklinton Castle Hill (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Kirklington; Levington Hall; Stubb

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

OS Map Grid Reference: NY43266743
Latitude 54.99826° Longitude -2.88861°

Kirklinton Castle Hill has been described as a probable Tower House.

There are no visible remains.

Description

"A few hundred yards from the house of the Dacres (Kirklinton Hall) may be traced the remains of an old mansion or castle .... From this place, it is said, many of the stones were got for building Kirklinton Hall. Between this place and the church .... there seems to have been a town. It is now tillage ground, but in many places there are pavements not above ten or twelve inches below the surface" (Graham).
There are no visible remains of a building of any type. The published site is situated on a small natural hillock from which the ground falls away to the north and west. The level area to the east is traversed by a slight ditch 0.5m deep and 80.0m in length, terminating to the north east in a small ravine. This may be the remains of an obstructive ditch, but the two arms of a moat (published on the 25") are no more than natural gullies. The alleged "site of the town" falls in pasture land at NY 433672 and there are no visible remains. (Field Investigators Comments–F1 BHP 22-OCT-72).
The highest land land near Stubb has locally been known as Castle Hill, the site of a strongly fortified house of the de Levington family (Perriam and Robinson). (PastScape)

King writes 'Remains of some ditches belonging to probable tower mentioned in 1590'. A possible late tower house is recorded in the SMR record for Kirklinton Hall

Comments

It is difficult to see a reason for moving Kirklington Hall a couple of hundred yard, since there seems no significant difference between the two sites, although the changes of ownership recorded in Bulmer might give some reason. Field boundaries shown on the 1868 OS map have since been removed and the area has clearly been ploughed but it still seems the physical evidence for any structure at this site is weak. However this is a strong tradition, houses do move and current Kirklinton Hall is said to date to 1661 and a tower is recorded before that date. A tower probably existed at Kirklinton, the caput of the Levington barony, probably of some strength since sometimes called a castle, but the precise location is uncertain. The recorded traditional site is not unreasonable and robbing of stone can be impressively intense. Further investigation with geophysics and judicious and careful metal detecting could be informative.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 11558.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 207; 5798.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Old Cumbria Gazetteer
Books
- Perriam, Denis and Robinson, John, 1998, The Medieval Fortified Buildings of Cumbria (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 29) p. 82
  Jackson, M.J.,1990, Castles of Cumbria (Carlisle: Carel Press) p. 96
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 87
  Curwen, J.F., 1913, Castles and Fortified Towers of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 13) p. 297
  Bulmer, T.F., 1901, History, Topography, and Directory Of Cumberland p. 242-3 online transcription
  Jeffrey, A., 1864, History and Antiquities of Roxburghshire Vol. 4 p. 232 (facsimile of map) online copy
  Hutchinson, W., 1794, The History of the County of Cumberland (Carlisle) Vol. 2 p. 570 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Graham, T.H.B., 1912, 'The de Levingtons of Kirklinton' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 12 p. 59-75 online copy
  Graham, T.H.B., 1911, 'The Border Manors' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 11 p. 45 online copy
  Graham, T.H.B., 1910, 'Extinct Cumberland Castles. Part II' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 10 p. 107-8 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')
  1607, Platt of the Forrest of Nicholl and the Mannor of Liddale, Arthurett and Randelinton with the Debatable groundes online copy (Randylinton)

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.
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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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