Hadlow Tower, Hadlow Castle

Hadlow Tower, Hadlow Castle

Tower, part of the remains of Hadlow Castle, a large Gothick house of late 18th-century origins. The tower was begun in 1838, with a lantern added in 1840, for Walter Barton May to the designs of George Ledwell Taylor of Thirsk. It was modelled in part on William Beckford's 1812 tower at Fonthill, Wiltshire, designed by James Wyatt, which collapsed in 1825. The tower is rendered brick constructed to imitate stone, with the finer architectural detail and decoration built up in Roman cement render in the Gothick style.

The tower was added at the south east corner of the original house, which had been built by May's father, with the stable courtyard to its north east. The main house was dismantled in 1951; what remains today is the stable courtyard, converted to housing, with the tower in the south east corner linked to the courtyard buildings by a freestanding wall, formerly the west wall of the house. The tower is octagonal on plan with a circular stair turret adjoining at the south west and a doorway on the north face. A lower rectangular tower adjoins at the west. The original function of the main tower, beyond advertising the wealth and architectural ambition of the family, is obscure. The interior is relatively plain, especially when compared with the lavish interior of the house. It does not appear to have been heated originally, and the smaller tower between it and the house was used as accommodation for men servants prior to 1951.

The tower stands 170 feet high, plus the lantern, and is an extraordinary landmark especially in the flat Hadlow landscape. It is covered with quite delicate Gothick detail in Roman cement, becoming progressively more elaborate on the upper stages. There are slender three-tier gabled projections to each of the cardinal faces with diagonal buttresses, steep gables and tall crocketted pinnacles. The three-stage stair turret has a pierced parapet and lancet window. The stages of the tower are marked by string courses of various designs, some enriched with fleurons. The faces of the tower are divided by buttresses which rise above the pierced parapet as tall pinnacles with gabled crocketted pinnacles. The tall buttressed pinnacled lantern was largely obscured by scaffolding at the time of survey in 1988.

The tower displays various tall Gothick windows, matching on each stage. The lower stage windows are two-light and transomed with flamboyant tracery and moulded architraves with engaged shafts with capitals; incised crosses appear above the windows and above them a string course with a tier of engaged battlementing. The second stage also has two-light transomed windows with quatrefoil windows above. Similar, narrower windows appear on the third stage with pairs of lancets above. The fourth stage has smaller transomed windows, with each wall face covered in blind arcading in two tiers. The fifth stage also has two tiers of decoration, the lower tier being trefoil-headed arcading, some blind and some glazed, the upper tier decorated with blind tracery and incorporating corbelled projections. Some of the Roman cement detail has fallen away. The gabled projections each have two tiers of tall lancet windows with moulded architraves, the embrasures filled with cusped lattice with traceried windows just below the gables. The north projection has a very tall chamfered two-centred doorway. The adjoining four-storey servants' tower is embattled with a rounded projecting stair turret at the north west and various Gothick windows: lancets, two-centred with cusped Y tracery and timber flamboyant traceried windows in square-headed embrasures.

The interior is plain by comparison with the exterior but preserves some original doors with applied Gothick panelling.

The tower represents a remarkable example of ambitious Gothick design and is an outstanding landscape feature. The May family was essentially local and some of the wealth used on the tower may have derived from hop-growing.