Pele Tower On East Return Of Pockerley Farmhouse

NZ 25 SW, 3/62

URPETH, HAMMER SQUARE BANK (North side, off), Pele tower on east return of Pockerley Farmhouse

GV

II*

Pele tower. Probably C15 with later alterations and additions. Coursed rubble with large stones inlower courses; Welsh slate roof. Rectangular plan: 10.3 metres long and 7.3 metres wide.

Two storeys. Raised east gable end has large, roughly-squared quoins, wide segmental relieving arch below gable and two later battered buttresses with C20 casement between. South wall has fragment of plinth, similar masonry and a late C19 first-floor sash. North wall, hidden by added narrow outshut, had a blocked 2-light window, with arched heads and hoodmould, on first floor (window may still be behind outshut). West gable end hidden by adjoining farmhouse (q.v.). Steeply-pitched roof with coped east gable.

Interior entered via doorway in barn on south. Walls 1.6-metres thick on ground floor and 1.2-metres thick above. Passage with 2 openings on north: roughly- arched opening to mural stairway inside east gable; chamfered round-arched doorway into stone barrel-vaulted chamber with blocked splayed loop at west. Mural stairway to first-floor square-headed doorway. Subdivided upper chamber has 3 cambered ceiling beams of heavy scantling. Main room has wide chamfered fireplace and 2 blocked windows behind cupboards on north wall. Small chamber beyond lath and plaster partition has blocked window with rough shouldered rear arch.

Partly reconstructed roof retains many original timbers of heavy scantling with wood pegged joints. 3 similar principal trusses: jowled king posts on tie beams have arched braces to ridge piece; principal rafters halved into re-used cambered collars which are halved into the king posts. 2 intermediate trusses with principals bedded into wall.

A rare though altered example of a pele-tower in County Durham which appears to retain a largely original roof structure.

Listing NGR: NZ2224354556