Alnham : The Earl of Northumberland's Tower

There must have been a manor house of some kind in the village, perhaps a hall house, prior to the construction of the tower. The Inquisition Post Mortem for John de Vesci in 1289 explicitly refers to the existence at Alnham of a capital messuage (i.e. a plot of land containing a high status dwelling).

The earliest reference to the Earl's tower occurs in 1405 when it figures as one of Harry Hotspur's strongholds which was surrendered to Henry IV, probably without resistance (Hardyng, 364; cf. Bates 1891, 12, Cathcart-King 1983, 325, 364). This would suggest the tower was constructed in the 14th century. A 'turris de Alneham', held by the Earl of Northumberland, was subsequently included in the list of Northumbrian fortifications compiled for Henry V, in 1415, before his departure for France.  'Elnam' also features in a return of 'holds and townships to lay in garrisons of horsemen', made at the beginning of Henry VIII reign in 1509, in which it was recommended that 40 men be stationed there (presumably either lodged in the tower itself or billeted in the village).

The 1509 survey also indicates that no one was residing in the tower at this date, a state of affairs, which probably prevailed throughout the 16th century.  With so many other vast and palatial castles in his possession, the Earl had no need to use the tower as a dwelling.

The fortification could still serve a useful purpose as a refuge for the villagers in time of crisis, but the lack of a resident proprietor meant that there was nobody on the spot with an immediate vested interest in ensuring that necessary repairs were swiftly undertaken and this is reflected in repeated references to the building's poor state or repair and decayed condition in surveys undertaken later in the century. Thus it is described as a little tower in need of repair in Bowes and Ellerker's survey of 1541.

There is no evidence that the repairs required in 1541 were carried out. Instead its condition may have further deteriorated. Stockdale's survey of the manor for the Earl of Northumberland, in 1586, described the building as

'a fair strong stone tower . . . strongly vaulted over' with 'gates and doors . . . of great strong iron bars and a good demesne adjoining thereto',

but then added the remarkable information that the house was now ruinous and in some decay because the farmer used to carry his sheep up the stairs and to lay them in the chambers, with the result that the vaults had rotted. This would shortly result in the 'utter decay' of the house unless restoration was undertaken, the survey declared.

The surviving remains are located in a good defensive position on the summit of a low ridge/knoll at the western end of the village. The site is overlooked by higher ground to the southeast, but has a good view in other directions. It comprises banks of earth and stone standing up to two metres high and forming a roughly square enclosure, which measures c. 17m by 20m.

Picture : Alnham Castle Remains

A survey of the earthworks is included in Dixon's PhD thesis on Villages of North Northumberland (1985, II, 31). To the east and south, traces of banks and lynchets defining a small level platform appear to represent a small, roughly triangular annex attached to the building.

Further to the north, below the summit, another well-defined lynchet bank, which merges with the bank of a small stream to the northwest, marks course of an outer enclosure surrounding the tower. This is shown on the 1619 map and probably represents the 'garden and two acres of meadow' associated with 'the site of the manor' in the Inquisition Post Mortem of Henry de Percy in 1368.

Dippie Dixon claimed that traces of a barmkin were visible in his day, along with the remains of outer buildings (1895, 28), although Bowes and Ellerker's give no indication that the earl's tower was furnished with a barmkin enclosure for the protection of the community's livestock in 1541, when they undertook their detailed itemisation of the border's defences. It is unclear whether Dixon was referring to the outer enclosure which appears too extensive to be truly defensive in function or the inner annex, which only enclosed a very restricted area.