Rockcliffe Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Rokele; Rokclife; Rocliffe; Rowcliffe; Roukcliff; Rockelife; Roclyf

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

OS Map Grid Reference: NY35386194
Latitude 54.94777° Longitude -3.01039°

Rockcliffe Castle has been described as a certain Tower House.

There are no visible remains.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 10833.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 185.

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
  Salter, Mike, 1998, The Castles and Tower Houses of Cumbria (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 84
  Jackson, M.J.,1990, Castles of Cumbria (Carlisle: Carel Press) p. 82-3
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 94
  Curwen, J.F., 1913, Castles and Fortified Towers of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 13) p. 391-3
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  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. 523-4 online copy
  Nicholson, J. and Burn, B., 1777, The History and Antiquities of the Counties of Westmorland and Cumberland (London) Vol. 2 p. 223 online copy
Periodical Articles
- McIntire, W.T., 1939, 'The Fords of the Solway' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 39 p. 156-8 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. 108-12 online copy
  1902, 'Addenda Antiquaria' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 2 p. 412-3 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.)
- Brewer, J.S. (ed), 1867, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII Vol. 3 p. 852 No. 1986 online copy
  Green, M.A.E.(ed), 1872, Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Elizabeth, Addenda 1580-1625 p. 17-18 no. 44 (Reference for for Dacre's 1580 survey of the West March) online copy
  Bain, J., 1894, Calendar of Letters and Papers relating to the Borders of England and Scotland (Edinburgh: HMSO) Vol. 1 1560-1594 p. 32 no 76; p. 101 no. 162; p. 168 no. 274; p. 392 no.743; p. 534 np 954 online copy
  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')
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)
  Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 93
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1910, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 5 p. 51 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.

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