The Tower and Beeches is a Grade II listed building in the Northumberland local planning authority area, England. First listed on 18 December 1986. House. 10 related planning applications.
The Tower and Beeches
- WRENN ID
- solitary-casement-aspen
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Northumberland
- Constituency
- Blyth and Ashington MP: Ian Lavery (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 18 December 1986
- Type
- House
- Address
- The Tower and Beeches, Church Lane, West Bedlington, NE22 5EL
- OS grid reference
- NZ 260 816
- Coordinates
- 55.12834, -1.59287
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Tower and Beeches is a house that has been converted into two dwellings. It was built in the late 18th century and extended and altered in 1910. The building is made of coursed rubble with tooled or tooled-and-margined quoins and dressings, and it features a green slate roof, except for the blue slates on the south extension added in 1910.
The front elevation has two sections with a total of five bays, rising two to three storeys. The left part is set forward and includes a two-storey bay window with paired sash windows, featuring a 12-pane upper leaf and a plate-glass lower leaf. To the right of this bay window is a porch with a renewed door, a plain overlight, and a battlemented parapet, above which is an 8-pane sash window. The roof is hipped and has a corniced ridge stack.
On the right side, there is a three-storey tower that features an early 20th-century bronze sundial set in a moulded stone surround beneath a 12-pane sash window in an alternating-block surround on the second floor. The tower has a corbelled-out battlemented parapet that supports a small corniced stack on the right. The right return of the tower displays a 12-pane sash window at the first floor level. The recessed right part of the building has two 8-pane sashes on the first floor of the left bay, while the right bay is the 1910 extension with altered windows. The roof on this side is hipped with two ridge stacks, one rendered and the other stepped and corniced.
The two-bay left return features 12-pane sashes in alternating-block surrounds, and the rear elevation has a canted bay added in 1910. Inside, there is an open-well stair in the tower, which has stick balusters and a steeply-ramped moulded handrail.
Previously known as Tower Cottage, this building once served as a school. The tower is believed to have been constructed as an astronomical observatory by a curate in the 18th century. The 20th-century extension on the south side is not considered of special interest.
Local climate
The Tower and Beeches receives an average of 820 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 52% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 75% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 20 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 78% of listed buildings. Of these, 13 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- Sale history — 2 transactions since 2001
- Related listed building consents — 10 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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