Ford Castle East Gateway, East Forecourt Wall and Handyman's Cottage is a Grade II* listed building in the Northumberland local planning authority area, England. First listed on 10 March 1988. Gateway.

Ford Castle East Gateway, East Forecourt Wall and Handyman's Cottage

WRENN ID
north-granite-nettle
Grade
II*
Local Planning Authority
Northumberland
Constituency
North Northumberland MP: David Smith (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
10 March 1988
Type
Gateway
OS grid reference
NT 944 375
Coordinates
55.63136, -2.08918
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

Ford Castle East Gateway, East Forecourt Wall, and Handyman's Cottage were built in 1791 by J. Nisbet for Sir John Hussey Deleval, with the cottage added around 1862, likely by David Bryce. The structures are made of ashlar and designed in the Gothick style.

The east wall features seven bays, with a central pointed carriage arch that has wooden double gates and an imitation portcullis. It is surrounded by a roll-moulded arch with square imposts and a cornice that includes two rows of alternating dentils, resembling a billet moulding.

Flanking the gateway are large semi-circular towers, each with three arched niches on the ground floor and strings adorned with intersecting pointed arches. The first floors of the towers have three roundels, two of which feature quatrefoils; the left tower contains a dovecote in the center roundel, while the right tower has a clock. The towers also have friezes of hanging pointed arches and three pierced quatrefoils in each parapet.

Sections of castellated wall flank the towers, each with two cruciform slits, and there are square end towers with arched niches.

At the rear, and occupying the left end tower, is the handyman's cottage, which is two storeys high and has three bays. It has an irregular and picturesque appearance. The right bay features a large combined porch and chimney stack, while the center bay has eight steps leading up to the door, a 16-pane sash window on the ground floor, and a two-light mullioned window above. The left bay includes a two-light window on the ground floor and a small four-pane sash in a gabled half-dormer above.

There is a stable block attached to the rear, now used as garages, but it is not of special interest.

Local climate

Ford Castle East Gateway, East Forecourt Wall and Handyman's Cottage receives an average of 840 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 57% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 82% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 32 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 59% of listed buildings. Of these, 20 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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