MONUMENT NO. 4900

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A small mound to the south of Titlington Hall probably represents the site of a pre-1541 pele tower. There is documentary evidence that the tower replaced a motte and bailey sometime before 1415.

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In a survey made in 1541 it is stated that at Titlington there was a `little tower of the princes inheritance decayed'... belonging to the suppressed monastery of Kyrkehm. (1)

The site of Titlington Hall is a nearly level piece of ground on a
saddle between Titlington and Jennys Lantern Hill. Here there seems to have stood a small motte and bailey a short distance S of the present mansion with the front lawn on the site of the bailey. At some date in the middle ages the motte was lowered and a pele tower erected; its enclosure extended North eastwards c 75 yards where the traditional site of the gateway is marked by a small mound and hawthorn tree. In 1745 Roger Pearson either cleared away or altered the pele and built a house whose surviving trace is the date 1745 cut at the W corner of the (present) building. (2)

NU 09871509. A little to the south of Titlington Hall is a
tree-planted mound 15.0m in diameter and 1.2m high. This appears to be the remains of the 'motte' and site of the tower. There are no visible traces of the bailey or of the mound and hawthorn tree making the traditional site of the gateway. The ground in the vicinity of the mound is uneven but there are no definite traces of building steadings.

There are no traces of antiquity in any of the existing buildings.
The date stone is as in Authority 2 and just above it is another
stating that the building was rebuilt in 1824. (3)

The mound does not look as if it were ever a motte. It would,
however, support a tower, and it seems likely that the whole was
never more that a pele and barmkin.
Surveyed at 1:2500. (4)

Site of motte and bailey built by Walter Espec in the late 12th or early 13th century. At some time before 1415 a small tower was built on the site of the motte. The tower was described as fortified and decayed in 1553. The site of the tower was cleared in 1745, that in turn being replaced by the present country house in 1821. (5,6)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Archaeologia Aeliana : or miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity

J G Hodgson 21, 1924 Page(s)9

( 2) edited by Madeleine Hope Dodds 1935 A history of Northumberland, volume fourteen : the parishes of Alnham, Chatton, Chillingham, Eglingham, Ilderton, Ingram and Whittingham, the chapelries of Lowick and Doddington

A history of Northumberland15 vols (1893-1940) vol.14 Page(s)447

( 3) Field Investigators Comments

F1 EG 14-FEB-58

( 4) Field Investigators Comments

F2 RE 14-APR-70

(5) Dodds, JF 1999 Bastions and Belligerents: Medieval Strongholds in Northumberland

Page(s)148

(6) David J Cathcart King 1983 Castellarium anglicanum : an index and bibliography of the castles in England, Wales and the Islands. Volume II : Norfolk-Yorkshire and the islands

Page(s)342

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