Cartington Castle (Cartington)
[NU 03870454] Cartington Castle (Remains of). (1)
Fortalice at Cartington. (Rather a castle (a)). (2)
Cartington; a handsome seat on the top of the hill, and near to it is an almshouse in which are maintained three poor Roman Catholic widows. (3)
At Cartyngton is a good fortress of two towers and other strong stone houses. (4)
Turris de Kartyngton. (5)
The site of Cartington Castle was chosen partly for its abundant supply of sub-soil water, and partly for its command of the Debdon pass over the Rothbury Hills. No trace remains of any pre-14th century work at Cartington.
Building seems to have commenced at the south-west corner, with the erection of a strong tower with a heavy ribbed vault. South and east curtain walls, a south-east turret with an unribbed barrel vault and the foundations of a corresponding north-east turret followed some interruption, perhaps the fall of the Earl Thomas. After a further pause, the plan was changed, and the present great tower was founded to the north of the turrets foundations. This tower had an entrance door on the west side and was intended to stand alone, but soon a north curtain was built as the north side of a hall-and-chambers block attached to the west side of the tower. Work was again held up, and early in the 15th century the tower and hall block were completed, the latter with flat elliptical barrel vaults. In 1441 a licence to crenellate was attained.
The great tower had bartizans at the corners on the east side, and these rested on carved figures, now in the farmhouse garden.
The 1415 Survey mentions the Turris. This no doubt refers to the south-west tower. The description in the 1541 Survey shows that the whole castle had then been completed.
Some time in the reign of Elizabeth or James I, numerous two-light square-headed windows with Tudor hood moulds were inserted in the great tower and ground floor of the hall block. The tower was re-roofed with a twin-gable stone roof instead of a flat leaded roof. A staircase tower was built over the unfinished north-east turret, and two wings, running north and south, and separated by a narrow court, were formed across the east end of the main courtyard. In the angle between the westmost of these wings and the hall block there was a new entrance door at first floor level reached by steps, behind which the ground floor medieval entrance was concealed.
In the Civil War siege of 1648, the south-west tower and other buildings of the south wing were destroyed.
In 1654 the north-east tower was repaired by Edward Widdrington. The courtyard was raised to first floor level with the debris of the ruined wings and new entrance doorway made to the first floor of the north-east tower.
After the Restoration, came the west wall and gateway of the courtyard and laying of the outer forecourt.
About the same time the eastern third of the ruins of the old hall block was patched up and made into a tall plain wing buttressing the north-east tower. A new entrance door was made here, and there were four storeys of rooms above it, the uppermost reached by an extension of the old turret stair.
Dilapidation was rapid from the early 19th century after the loss of the roofs, and was hastened by the use of the ruins as a quarry.
Lord Armstrong bought the property in 1883 and instructed C C Hodges to preserve the ruins, in 1887. The courtyard was cleared out to reveal its original plan and the stair turret was made secure and the great hall window was restored.
The castle proper consists of a courtyard separated from the base court by a 'palace' range having a great tower at its north end. There were formerly ranges of buildings on all sides of the court except perhaps the west. This side is a curtain wall 2ft 2ins thick, built after the Civil War at the new level then formed. On its inner side there is a steep bank down to the original yard level as re-excavated in 1888-9. The south curtain wall of somewhat earlier appearance is 2ft 10ins thick. The east curtain wall remains with turrets either end, the west faces of which were joined by the east wall of a 16th century or 17th century building. Thus a narrow court 11ft by 31ft was formed. The great tower measures 31ft 9ins east to west and 42ft 5ins north to south. The ground floor is divided into three parts covered with unribbed semi-circular barrel vaults. There is well shaft on the east side which is carried up through the vaulting to the floor above.
There is a boldly projecting stair turret at the south-west corner, and there are mural stairs at the north-west and south-east corners.
The north and east walls of the tower are gone; though the stair turret still remains to its full height only a little of the south wall of the upper storeys remains.
The north wing has a stair turret at its north-west corner and in the middle of the north side, an enormous flying buttress, the upper part of which no doubt consisted of small chambers. The outer walls are over 6ft thick at ground level. The upper part of the south wall has collapsed after the building had lost its roof, and was much repaired in 1888-9. (6)
The castle ruins stand in a small plantation on the summit of Cartington Bank, a shoulder of Cartington Hill, which rises on the east nearly 1000ft above sea level. On the west there spreads the broad vale of the Coquet river. It is now some 50 years since the tower was occupied, since when dilapidations have gone on at a rapid pace. During the 1888-9 excavations, among other things, a small 15th century wooden cross, coins of Charles II and George I and a 15th century finely carved stone bust were found. The latter together with two sandstone carvings, one a Pieta, the other representing the Trinity, had probably been in the chapel in the castle. A petition to Charles II in 1661 records that Cartington Castle, worth £8000, was pulled down by the Parliamentarians after the battle of Marston Moor. (7)
About 1824, Mr Robert Robson the occupier, dug out of the ruins of Cartington Castle, a stone with the date 1030, a mutilated figure of the Blessed Trinity, a figure of St Anthony, the top of a Gothic window and a font or stamp. Near the front or south of the castle has, probably, anciently stood a church or chapel, now totally buried. (8)
The remains of the castle are situated upon the end of a north-south ridge of pasture and arable land. The ridge dips slightly to the north of the site before rising gently to the highest point, a quarter of a mile away. Gentle slopes fall to the east to the Spout Burn, and to the south and west to the Coquet valley. The site commands extensive views, particularly to the north-west.
The walls of the north-east tower are fallen above first floor level except at the south-west corner, while those of the north wing are likewise demolished to first floor level except over the buttress and along the southside, where they still stand to third floor level at the eastern end. A well is exposed in the yard on the north side. Description and plan, as given by Authority 6, are otherwise fully correct. The present location of finds made in 1824, 1888-9 has not been ascertained. (9)
Condition unchanged. There are no associated earthworks. (10)
Grade I listed building, Cartington Castle.
See plan and photos in County History. Seems to have been begun as a square enclosure with corner towers by the Great Earl Thomas of Lancaster, completed as a courtyard house in l5th century, after partial late l4th century completion, apparently from a design by the architect who planned the Keep at Warkworth. Altered early l7th century and drastically, late 17th or early l8th century when the courtyard was filled up to first floor level. Excavated and repaired by the first Lord Armstrong. The castle has been scheduled as an Ancient Monument. (11)
NU 0391 0452. Cartington Castle at Cartington Farm. Scheduled RSM No20903. Ten metres N of the tower house there are traces of a medieval wall and a large terrace, the remains of a garden feature associated with the tower house. To the E and SE rectangular enclosures are visible, surviving as low earthworks, and a large terrace feature is very prominent; early documents testify to the existence of other houses and enclosures, orchards and gardens forming part of the castle complex. (12)
The principal domestic suite of buildings of the castle is the north range, containing a first floor hall flanked by the main tower at the east and a solar at the west. On the south is a rectangular courtyard with two parallel ranges of of buildings on the east and a small tower at the south east corner. The remains show an unusual complexity.
The wall on the west side of the courtyard is in poor condition and largely a tumbled ruin. In its centre are a pair of 17th century gatepiers, the better-preserved southern one has recently been felled by a falling tree and lies scattered in pieces. The steep slope dropping eastward from the wall is the result of the clearance of 17th century infill from the courtyard in 1887-9, returning the area to its medieval level.
NORTH RANGE:
The south wall of the main range of buildings, on the north of the court, stands high; its other walls are generally reduced to around first floor level. On the south, the semi-octagonal stair turret at the south west corner of the main tower stands to a considerable height; the section of wall on either side are largely Hodges' restoration of 1887-9, at least above first floor level and the change in fabric can be recognised.
HALL:
A moulded doorway in the central section of the range (its head a restoration - a blank shield above was to be carved with Lord Armstrong's arms) leads into a lobby with the hall stair rising to the right (east) and a door beyond opening into the hall basement. This retains about half its barrel vault, which looks suspiciously 'tidied up'. There is another doorway in the external wall of the range. Doorways also open east and west from the cellar, that on the east into the complex basement of the main tower.
The hall stair rises to a lobby from which the tower stair continues upward. The doorway into the hall itself has a moulded four-centred arch and apparently led into a cross-passage with three doorways to the east (ie into the first floor of the tower). The first, a plain square-headed one that may be an insertion, the next two, four-centred and square-headed respectively, with the same double-roll moulding seen on the hall doorway. The north end of the passage was lit by a window in the north wall, which retains its four-centred rear arch.
It is not quite clear whether the hall originally extended west above the basement chamber beyond the vaulted undercroft. There is some evidence of a first floor cross wall above the division between the basement chambers, but a surviving door jamb at its north end suggests this might be a 17th century insertion. Opposite this point a surviving fragment of the south wall (incorporated in the late 19th century reconstruction) contains part of a small mural chamber.
In a 16th or early 17th century remodelling, a new first floor doorway was opened on the south side of the hall, reached by an external stair from the courtyard. The footings of the stair remain, but other evidence of this entry have been erased by the 19th century reconstructions.
MAIN TOWER:
The tower basement has a groined vault which seems secondary, it might even be a 17th century insertion. On the west is a ragged opening into a well shaft dropping from the first floor and at floor level a fine semi-octagonal bowl or sink. At the south west corner a newel stair leads up to the first floor. A second vaulted chamber on the north has a mural stair rising in the thickness of the north wall. A third mural chamber at the south east corner, completely separate from the main basement, is now entered by a doorway in the south wall, opening from
a rectangular turret or stair projection set within the north east angle of the courtyard. An elongate mural lobby on the east of the doorway has been interpreted as yet another stair, but in fact looks more likely to be linked to a former window in the east wall, blocked on the addition of the east range. The turret or projection in the corner of the courtyard is a complex structure, possibly a 17th century remodelling of an earlier small tower, like that at the south
east corner.
At first floor level there are remains of an east-west cross wall, obviously terminating short of the east wall as the well is set on the same line. One of the two chambers here was presumably the kitchen. The upper section of the turret stair is reached by a doorway, its pointed head later cut square, opening from the lobby at the head of the hall stair. The south wall of the turret is genuine medieval work to its apex, but the stair itself and the other walls are clearly Hodges' restoration.
SOLAR:
The solar, or private chamber, presumably occupied the western part of the range, above two basement chambers, neither of which retains any vault. The eastern chamber has another doorway in the external (north) wall and between this and the doorway on the north of the hall
undercroft is a massive flying buttress, possibly a post-medieval strengthening measure; the chamber also has a fireplace, with restored lintel, in the south wall. The western chamber has a broad newel stair rising within a rectangular projection at the west end of its north wall; this remains intact up to first floor level, but is clearly partly reconstruction.
EAST RANGES:
The main or outer east range is clearly an addition, reusing what was formerly an external wall on the east side of the courtyard as its internal wall. This wall, containing various inserted openings, stands to first floor level, but the outer walls of the range are much more ruinous.
A second, or inner, east range, parallel to the first and separated from it by a narrow north-south court, was built inside the courtyard. Only its foundations now remain.
SOUTH EAST TOWER:
This small tower has a vaulted basement which survives intact, an external stair on the west gicing access to the first floor and an added garderobe turret at the south west corner.
SOUTH WALL AND SOUTH WEST TOWER:
The south wall of the courtyard generally stands to c.2m high. It is constructed of squared masonry, the courses of which follow the pronounced west to east slope of the ground. At the west end of the wall is a gap where Honeyman traced the remains of the vaulted basement of a south west tower (perhaps associated with a gatehouse) which he saw as the earliest part of the castle. At the time of survey (July 1995) nothing was visible here except loose rubble and nettles; the area may have suffered recent damage.
OUTER COURT:
To the south the lines of the walls of the outer court remain clear. They are partly grassed over on the south and west; the east wall has been reconstructed as a field wall. There are remains of a structure of at least two phases at the south east corner, which may represent an outer gatehouse.
NORTH COURT:
On the north of the castle was a further enclosure. It was clearly regarded as part of the defensible perimeter as the two basement doorways on the north side of the north range open into it. All that is currently visible is a little of its west wall linking to the west end of the north range and then returning north.
WESTERN COURT:
To the west of the castle was another enclosure measuring 67m east-west and entered by another 17th century gateway, the lower part of one pier of which survives. What may be the swept cap of one of its piers is now built into a stile in a neighbouring wall.
CONCLUSIONS:
Cartington is a ruin of considerable importance. It is a high status residence perhaps better classified as a fortified manor house, rather than a castle, built on a grander scale than Edlingham. Despite the post-medieval reconstruction as a country house and the Armstrong and Hodges' efforts at restoration, it retains much in the way both of structural complexitites and architectural features.
It is also perhaps the most seriously 'at risk' structure within the remit of the present survey. The growth of trees on and in the walls is resulting in the collapse of walls; two particularly perilous areas on the brink of collapse are the north east corner of the main tower and the south east turret, as well as the recently fallen 17th century gatepier. (13)
A series of eight small test pits were excavated by Alan Williams Archaeology in the topsoil that has developed at first floor levels over the surviving ground floor vaults in the northeast and southeast towers on 23 March 2012. These revealed that the toposoil has formed over earlier levels of mortar (probably laid down in the late 19th century consolidation of the ruin), a floor (possibly Medieval) and a pile of fallen or dumped rubble. The date and nature of this pile - whether collapse or clearance - is unknown. (14)
History of the castle. (15a)
Main events in the castle's history listed by Cathcart King. (15b)
Fortalice at Cartington. (Rather a castle (a)). (2)
Cartington; a handsome seat on the top of the hill, and near to it is an almshouse in which are maintained three poor Roman Catholic widows. (3)
At Cartyngton is a good fortress of two towers and other strong stone houses. (4)
Turris de Kartyngton. (5)
The site of Cartington Castle was chosen partly for its abundant supply of sub-soil water, and partly for its command of the Debdon pass over the Rothbury Hills. No trace remains of any pre-14th century work at Cartington.
Building seems to have commenced at the south-west corner, with the erection of a strong tower with a heavy ribbed vault. South and east curtain walls, a south-east turret with an unribbed barrel vault and the foundations of a corresponding north-east turret followed some interruption, perhaps the fall of the Earl Thomas. After a further pause, the plan was changed, and the present great tower was founded to the north of the turrets foundations. This tower had an entrance door on the west side and was intended to stand alone, but soon a north curtain was built as the north side of a hall-and-chambers block attached to the west side of the tower. Work was again held up, and early in the 15th century the tower and hall block were completed, the latter with flat elliptical barrel vaults. In 1441 a licence to crenellate was attained.
The great tower had bartizans at the corners on the east side, and these rested on carved figures, now in the farmhouse garden.
The 1415 Survey mentions the Turris. This no doubt refers to the south-west tower. The description in the 1541 Survey shows that the whole castle had then been completed.
Some time in the reign of Elizabeth or James I, numerous two-light square-headed windows with Tudor hood moulds were inserted in the great tower and ground floor of the hall block. The tower was re-roofed with a twin-gable stone roof instead of a flat leaded roof. A staircase tower was built over the unfinished north-east turret, and two wings, running north and south, and separated by a narrow court, were formed across the east end of the main courtyard. In the angle between the westmost of these wings and the hall block there was a new entrance door at first floor level reached by steps, behind which the ground floor medieval entrance was concealed.
In the Civil War siege of 1648, the south-west tower and other buildings of the south wing were destroyed.
In 1654 the north-east tower was repaired by Edward Widdrington. The courtyard was raised to first floor level with the debris of the ruined wings and new entrance doorway made to the first floor of the north-east tower.
After the Restoration, came the west wall and gateway of the courtyard and laying of the outer forecourt.
About the same time the eastern third of the ruins of the old hall block was patched up and made into a tall plain wing buttressing the north-east tower. A new entrance door was made here, and there were four storeys of rooms above it, the uppermost reached by an extension of the old turret stair.
Dilapidation was rapid from the early 19th century after the loss of the roofs, and was hastened by the use of the ruins as a quarry.
Lord Armstrong bought the property in 1883 and instructed C C Hodges to preserve the ruins, in 1887. The courtyard was cleared out to reveal its original plan and the stair turret was made secure and the great hall window was restored.
The castle proper consists of a courtyard separated from the base court by a 'palace' range having a great tower at its north end. There were formerly ranges of buildings on all sides of the court except perhaps the west. This side is a curtain wall 2ft 2ins thick, built after the Civil War at the new level then formed. On its inner side there is a steep bank down to the original yard level as re-excavated in 1888-9. The south curtain wall of somewhat earlier appearance is 2ft 10ins thick. The east curtain wall remains with turrets either end, the west faces of which were joined by the east wall of a 16th century or 17th century building. Thus a narrow court 11ft by 31ft was formed. The great tower measures 31ft 9ins east to west and 42ft 5ins north to south. The ground floor is divided into three parts covered with unribbed semi-circular barrel vaults. There is well shaft on the east side which is carried up through the vaulting to the floor above.
There is a boldly projecting stair turret at the south-west corner, and there are mural stairs at the north-west and south-east corners.
The north and east walls of the tower are gone; though the stair turret still remains to its full height only a little of the south wall of the upper storeys remains.
The north wing has a stair turret at its north-west corner and in the middle of the north side, an enormous flying buttress, the upper part of which no doubt consisted of small chambers. The outer walls are over 6ft thick at ground level. The upper part of the south wall has collapsed after the building had lost its roof, and was much repaired in 1888-9. (6)
The castle ruins stand in a small plantation on the summit of Cartington Bank, a shoulder of Cartington Hill, which rises on the east nearly 1000ft above sea level. On the west there spreads the broad vale of the Coquet river. It is now some 50 years since the tower was occupied, since when dilapidations have gone on at a rapid pace. During the 1888-9 excavations, among other things, a small 15th century wooden cross, coins of Charles II and George I and a 15th century finely carved stone bust were found. The latter together with two sandstone carvings, one a Pieta, the other representing the Trinity, had probably been in the chapel in the castle. A petition to Charles II in 1661 records that Cartington Castle, worth £8000, was pulled down by the Parliamentarians after the battle of Marston Moor. (7)
About 1824, Mr Robert Robson the occupier, dug out of the ruins of Cartington Castle, a stone with the date 1030, a mutilated figure of the Blessed Trinity, a figure of St Anthony, the top of a Gothic window and a font or stamp. Near the front or south of the castle has, probably, anciently stood a church or chapel, now totally buried. (8)
The remains of the castle are situated upon the end of a north-south ridge of pasture and arable land. The ridge dips slightly to the north of the site before rising gently to the highest point, a quarter of a mile away. Gentle slopes fall to the east to the Spout Burn, and to the south and west to the Coquet valley. The site commands extensive views, particularly to the north-west.
The walls of the north-east tower are fallen above first floor level except at the south-west corner, while those of the north wing are likewise demolished to first floor level except over the buttress and along the southside, where they still stand to third floor level at the eastern end. A well is exposed in the yard on the north side. Description and plan, as given by Authority 6, are otherwise fully correct. The present location of finds made in 1824, 1888-9 has not been ascertained. (9)
Condition unchanged. There are no associated earthworks. (10)
Grade I listed building, Cartington Castle.
See plan and photos in County History. Seems to have been begun as a square enclosure with corner towers by the Great Earl Thomas of Lancaster, completed as a courtyard house in l5th century, after partial late l4th century completion, apparently from a design by the architect who planned the Keep at Warkworth. Altered early l7th century and drastically, late 17th or early l8th century when the courtyard was filled up to first floor level. Excavated and repaired by the first Lord Armstrong. The castle has been scheduled as an Ancient Monument. (11)
NU 0391 0452. Cartington Castle at Cartington Farm. Scheduled RSM No20903. Ten metres N of the tower house there are traces of a medieval wall and a large terrace, the remains of a garden feature associated with the tower house. To the E and SE rectangular enclosures are visible, surviving as low earthworks, and a large terrace feature is very prominent; early documents testify to the existence of other houses and enclosures, orchards and gardens forming part of the castle complex. (12)
The principal domestic suite of buildings of the castle is the north range, containing a first floor hall flanked by the main tower at the east and a solar at the west. On the south is a rectangular courtyard with two parallel ranges of of buildings on the east and a small tower at the south east corner. The remains show an unusual complexity.
The wall on the west side of the courtyard is in poor condition and largely a tumbled ruin. In its centre are a pair of 17th century gatepiers, the better-preserved southern one has recently been felled by a falling tree and lies scattered in pieces. The steep slope dropping eastward from the wall is the result of the clearance of 17th century infill from the courtyard in 1887-9, returning the area to its medieval level.
NORTH RANGE:
The south wall of the main range of buildings, on the north of the court, stands high; its other walls are generally reduced to around first floor level. On the south, the semi-octagonal stair turret at the south west corner of the main tower stands to a considerable height; the section of wall on either side are largely Hodges' restoration of 1887-9, at least above first floor level and the change in fabric can be recognised.
HALL:
A moulded doorway in the central section of the range (its head a restoration - a blank shield above was to be carved with Lord Armstrong's arms) leads into a lobby with the hall stair rising to the right (east) and a door beyond opening into the hall basement. This retains about half its barrel vault, which looks suspiciously 'tidied up'. There is another doorway in the external wall of the range. Doorways also open east and west from the cellar, that on the east into the complex basement of the main tower.
The hall stair rises to a lobby from which the tower stair continues upward. The doorway into the hall itself has a moulded four-centred arch and apparently led into a cross-passage with three doorways to the east (ie into the first floor of the tower). The first, a plain square-headed one that may be an insertion, the next two, four-centred and square-headed respectively, with the same double-roll moulding seen on the hall doorway. The north end of the passage was lit by a window in the north wall, which retains its four-centred rear arch.
It is not quite clear whether the hall originally extended west above the basement chamber beyond the vaulted undercroft. There is some evidence of a first floor cross wall above the division between the basement chambers, but a surviving door jamb at its north end suggests this might be a 17th century insertion. Opposite this point a surviving fragment of the south wall (incorporated in the late 19th century reconstruction) contains part of a small mural chamber.
In a 16th or early 17th century remodelling, a new first floor doorway was opened on the south side of the hall, reached by an external stair from the courtyard. The footings of the stair remain, but other evidence of this entry have been erased by the 19th century reconstructions.
MAIN TOWER:
The tower basement has a groined vault which seems secondary, it might even be a 17th century insertion. On the west is a ragged opening into a well shaft dropping from the first floor and at floor level a fine semi-octagonal bowl or sink. At the south west corner a newel stair leads up to the first floor. A second vaulted chamber on the north has a mural stair rising in the thickness of the north wall. A third mural chamber at the south east corner, completely separate from the main basement, is now entered by a doorway in the south wall, opening from
a rectangular turret or stair projection set within the north east angle of the courtyard. An elongate mural lobby on the east of the doorway has been interpreted as yet another stair, but in fact looks more likely to be linked to a former window in the east wall, blocked on the addition of the east range. The turret or projection in the corner of the courtyard is a complex structure, possibly a 17th century remodelling of an earlier small tower, like that at the south
east corner.
At first floor level there are remains of an east-west cross wall, obviously terminating short of the east wall as the well is set on the same line. One of the two chambers here was presumably the kitchen. The upper section of the turret stair is reached by a doorway, its pointed head later cut square, opening from the lobby at the head of the hall stair. The south wall of the turret is genuine medieval work to its apex, but the stair itself and the other walls are clearly Hodges' restoration.
SOLAR:
The solar, or private chamber, presumably occupied the western part of the range, above two basement chambers, neither of which retains any vault. The eastern chamber has another doorway in the external (north) wall and between this and the doorway on the north of the hall
undercroft is a massive flying buttress, possibly a post-medieval strengthening measure; the chamber also has a fireplace, with restored lintel, in the south wall. The western chamber has a broad newel stair rising within a rectangular projection at the west end of its north wall; this remains intact up to first floor level, but is clearly partly reconstruction.
EAST RANGES:
The main or outer east range is clearly an addition, reusing what was formerly an external wall on the east side of the courtyard as its internal wall. This wall, containing various inserted openings, stands to first floor level, but the outer walls of the range are much more ruinous.
A second, or inner, east range, parallel to the first and separated from it by a narrow north-south court, was built inside the courtyard. Only its foundations now remain.
SOUTH EAST TOWER:
This small tower has a vaulted basement which survives intact, an external stair on the west gicing access to the first floor and an added garderobe turret at the south west corner.
SOUTH WALL AND SOUTH WEST TOWER:
The south wall of the courtyard generally stands to c.2m high. It is constructed of squared masonry, the courses of which follow the pronounced west to east slope of the ground. At the west end of the wall is a gap where Honeyman traced the remains of the vaulted basement of a south west tower (perhaps associated with a gatehouse) which he saw as the earliest part of the castle. At the time of survey (July 1995) nothing was visible here except loose rubble and nettles; the area may have suffered recent damage.
OUTER COURT:
To the south the lines of the walls of the outer court remain clear. They are partly grassed over on the south and west; the east wall has been reconstructed as a field wall. There are remains of a structure of at least two phases at the south east corner, which may represent an outer gatehouse.
NORTH COURT:
On the north of the castle was a further enclosure. It was clearly regarded as part of the defensible perimeter as the two basement doorways on the north side of the north range open into it. All that is currently visible is a little of its west wall linking to the west end of the north range and then returning north.
WESTERN COURT:
To the west of the castle was another enclosure measuring 67m east-west and entered by another 17th century gateway, the lower part of one pier of which survives. What may be the swept cap of one of its piers is now built into a stile in a neighbouring wall.
CONCLUSIONS:
Cartington is a ruin of considerable importance. It is a high status residence perhaps better classified as a fortified manor house, rather than a castle, built on a grander scale than Edlingham. Despite the post-medieval reconstruction as a country house and the Armstrong and Hodges' efforts at restoration, it retains much in the way both of structural complexitites and architectural features.
It is also perhaps the most seriously 'at risk' structure within the remit of the present survey. The growth of trees on and in the walls is resulting in the collapse of walls; two particularly perilous areas on the brink of collapse are the north east corner of the main tower and the south east turret, as well as the recently fallen 17th century gatepier. (13)
A series of eight small test pits were excavated by Alan Williams Archaeology in the topsoil that has developed at first floor levels over the surviving ground floor vaults in the northeast and southeast towers on 23 March 2012. These revealed that the toposoil has formed over earlier levels of mortar (probably laid down in the late 19th century consolidation of the ruin), a floor (possibly Medieval) and a pile of fallen or dumped rubble. The date and nature of this pile - whether collapse or clearance - is unknown. (14)
History of the castle. (15a)
Main events in the castle's history listed by Cathcart King. (15b)
N2832
EXCAVATION, Excavation at Cartington Castle 1889; HODGES, C C
FIELD OBSERVATION, Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigation 1957; A S Phillips
FIELD SURVEY, Cartington Castle 2009; Mason Land Surveys Ltd
TEST PIT, Cartington Test Pits 2012; Alan Williams Archaeology
FIELD OBSERVATION, Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigation 1957; A S Phillips
FIELD SURVEY, Cartington Castle 2009; Mason Land Surveys Ltd
TEST PIT, Cartington Test Pits 2012; Alan Williams Archaeology
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