Embleton Tower is a

peel tower Peel towers (also spelt pele) are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the England, English and Scotland, Scottish Border country, borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, mainly between the mid-14th century and ab ...

and

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

in the village of Embleton in

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

, England. Tradition states that in 1395, the tower was built to protect the minister and parishioners of Embleton's Church of the Holy Trinity after the village suffered from a raid by the Scots. The first vicarage was provided for the vicar of Embleton by

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 126 ...

, who held the

patronage Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, art patronage refers to the support that princes, popes, and other wealthy and influential people ...

of the parish, in 1332. According to Montagu Francis Finch Osborn (1843–1910), vicar of Embleton in 1884, vicarages were erected at three different periods; by 1416, the Vicar's ''Turris de Emyldon'' was known to exist. The present building includes a house built in about 1828 as a vicarage adjoining the tower.

Geography

A low ridge lies between the vicarage and the sea, about a mile away at Embleton Bay. Its garden was sheltered with trees. In the field adjoining the tower, there is an ancient

dovecote A dovecote or dovecot , doocot (Scots Language, Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house Domestic pigeon, pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or b ...

Dunstanburgh Castle Dunstanburgh Castle is a 14th-century fortification on the coast of Northumberland in northern England, between the villages of Craster and Embleton. The castle was built by Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster between 1313 and 1322, taking advant ...

is approximately away. Howick is south of the vicarage.

History

The tower was built in 1395, at a cost of £40. Mentioned as the vicar's property in 1415, it was remodelled in the 16th century. In about 1828, a vicarage designed in the Tudor style by architect John Dobson, was built on one side of the tower. From 1875 to 1884, the vicarage was occupied by the historian and clergyman

Mandell Creighton Mandell Creighton (; 5 July 1843 – 14 January 1901) was a British historian, Anglican priest and bishop. The son of a successful carpenter in north-west England, Creighton studied at the University of Oxford, focusing his scholarship on ...

and his family. He began his ''History of the Papacy'' at the vicarage; he and his wife Louise between them wrote a total of 15 books while there. Peter Karney, the son of Bishop

Arthur Karney Arthur Baillie Lumsdaine Karney (1874 – 8 December 1963) was the first bishop of Johannesburg in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and the Church of England. Family Karney was one of 10 children of Gilbert Sparshott Karney, rector of ...

, was the vicar from 1954 to 1974; on his retirement the vicarage passed into private hands and became known as Embleton Tower. A new vicarage was built nearby. Architect and civil engineer Kay Seymour-Walker lived in the house from his retirement until his death in 2018: he left the tower to his gardener, and it was put on sale in 2021. A report at the time indicated that the structure has "eight bedrooms, seven reception rooms, a conservatory and a library" but "requires extensive repairs and modernisation".

Architecture

The tower is three storeys high and has two vaulted rooms in the basement. Similar to the towers of

Alnwick Alnwick ( ) is a market town in Northumberland, England, of which it is the traditional county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116. The town is south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish border, inland from the North Sea ...

and Morpeth, the Embleton tower has stone groining. Built as a rectangle with a high, plain, chamfered base, it measures from east to west, and from north to south. A chimney projects near the centre of the east wall. A three-light window and a small slit have been blocked up to the south side of it. There is a two-light window of the same type on the second floor. The roof rests on thin gables. It appears that the original roof was on a higher level than the present one. The

embrasure An embrasure (or crenel or crenelle; sometimes called gunhole in the domain of Age of Gunpowder, gunpowder-era architecture) is the opening in a battlement between two raised solid portions (merlons). Alternatively, an embrasure can be a sp ...

s are well proportioned. The tower probably had a spire made of wood and lead, similar to another at Ryton.

Interior features

Internally, the first floor is not unusual. The stair to the vaults is not accessible in the present day. Some steps of the stairs that led to the second floor are, however, to be seen in a cupboard in the north-east corner. The second floor was likely one room with plain stone corbels around the walls.

Stages

The tower structure consists of three stages, the lower one retaining its original

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

features. The two upper stages are of the 1330–40 era, when large alterations were made in the church. The middle stage has on the west side two small square-headed windows, and on the south a small trefoil-headed one. This stage may have been used as a chamber for temporary or even more permanent residence. The

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

has an open style, with six openings. The upper

belfry The belfry /ˈbɛlfri/ is a structure enclosing bells for ringing as part of a building, usually as part of a bell tower or steeple. It can also refer to the entire tower or building, particularly in continental Europe for such a tower attached ...

stage has on each side a window and is divided by a transom.

Vaulted chambers

In the basement of the tower are two vaulted chambers, the vaults both resting on a partition wall in the centre. The northern chamber is long from north to south, and wide. In the middle of the north wall is a fireplace wide. On the left of it is an

aumbry An ambry (or ''almery'', ''aumbry''; from the medieval form ''almarium'', cf. Lat. ''armārium'', "a place for keeping tools"; cf. O. Fr. ''aumoire'' and mod. armoire) is a recessed cabinet in the wall of a Christian church for storing sacred vesse ...

wide and deep, and high; on the right is a smaller aumbry. Near the south-west corner of this vault are located two pointed doorways. These vaults, renovated with modern partitions, are approached by a door in the northern vault. The churchyard immediately to the north is much higher than the ground where the tower is located. There is a square-headed original opening at the north end of the east wall. A vaulted chamber on the ground floor was a receiving area for cattle.

Vicarage

The former vicarage is a large house built onto the peel tower. It is constructed of black

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

References

* * * * * * *Fry, Plantagenet Somerset, ''The David & Charles Book of Castles'', David & Charles, 1980.

External links

* {{NHLE, desc=The Old Vicarage, num=1041824 Buildings and structures completed in 1395 Houses completed in the 14th century Towers completed in the 14th century Peel towers in Northumberland Grade I listed buildings in Northumberland Clergy houses in England Grade II listed houses

Tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...