Middleton St George Tower Hill (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Middleton St George.
In the historic county of Durham.
Modern Authority of Darlington.
1974 county of County Durham.
Medieval County of County Palatinate of Durham.

OS Map Grid Reference: NZ34601232
Latitude 54.50502° Longitude -1.46718°

Middleton St George Tower Hill has been described as a certain Timber Castle.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Tower Hill motte is very well preserved and is a good example of a motte castle. Such monuments are not common in County Durham. The monument includes a Norman motte situated in a prominent position overlooking the River Tees. The motte, circular in plan and flat topped, is constructed upon a partly natural mound. It is 5.5m high and 22m in diameter across the top and 50m across the base. The surrounding ditch, which has been infilled, lies beneath the path which has been constructed around the perimeter of the motte. The motte was constructed in this strategic position in order to dominate and control the passage of traffic across the river. (Scheduling Report)

Tower Hill was once the site of a Norman motte, of 11th or 12th century date. It measures 22m in diameter across the top. It may once have been surrounded by a ditch, but there are now no traces of one. The motte may have been built to guard the crossing point of the River Tees at Pountney's Bridge. (Keys to the Past)

Comments

Pountney's Bridge (Pons Tees) was the crossing point of the River Tees 300m south of Tower Hill. This was the site of the Roman crossing point and the bridge, which was of stone and had an associated chapel, may have originated with the Romans. The bridge was in use throughout the middle ages but was gradually superseded by Croft Bridge 8km west. The date of its destruction is not known but probably gone by Leland's time (1530's) as he does not mention it. This was a major crossing point at the time the motte at Middleton was constructed and it seems certain the castle did have a role to play in guarding this crossing point. Toward the end of the time the bridge was in use, after the castle had gone out of use, the road was notorious for highwaymen.

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1011072, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 20968
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 25684.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) D200.

Books
- Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles and Tower Houses of County Durham (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 47
  Jackson, M.J., 1996, Castles of Durham and Cleveland (Carlisle) p. 44
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 33 (slight)
  Corfe, Tom (ed), 1992, 'The Visible Middle Ages' in An Historical Atlas of County Durham p. 28-9
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 136
  Hugill, Robert, 1979, The Castles and Towers of the County of Durham (Newcastle; Frank Graham) p. 94
  Gould, Chalkley, 1905, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Page, Wm (ed), VCH Durham Vol. 1 (London) p. 355 online copy
  Mackenzie, E. and Ross, M., 1834, An Historical, Topographical and Descriptive View of the County Palatine of Durham Vol. 2 p. 76-7 (tenurial history only), 80-1 (Pounteys bridge) online copy
Periodical Articles
- Butler, Lawrence, 1994, 'The Origins of the Honour of Richmond and its Castles' Château Gaillard Vol. 16 p. 69-80 (Reprinted in Liddiard, Robert, (ed), 2003, Anglo-Norman Castles p. 91-103 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press))
  1980, Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland Vol. 5 p. 9
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Constable, Christopher, 2003, Aspects of the archaeology of the castle in the north of England C 1066-1216 (Doctoral thesis, Durham University) Available at Durham E-Theses Online

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	Scheduling
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