page_title: Dally Castle
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Dally Castle / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: From page 274, History of Northumberland
context_page_description: Dally Castle is a ruined 13th-century stone motte-and-bailey fortress in Northumberland, and one of the first hall houses in Northumberland. It lies 5 miles west of Bellingham Castle, and 4 miles west of Bellingham on the Chirdon Burn, a tributary of the North Tyne. Dally Castle House was built in the 18th century next to the castle. Across the road lies a small flour mill used to grind wheat during the Napoleonic War.
context_section_description: The upper and lower halves of the valley watered by the Chirdon are separated by a natural barrier in the shape of a high steep-sided ridge or "kaim" pierced at east end by the stream. The eastern part this ridge has been isolated by cutting a gap through it, as in the similar case of Wark on Tweed. A smaller notch cuts off the extreme eastern point of the ridge, and Dally castle stands along the narrow top of the ridge with its west end overlooking the larger ditch. There are also traces of masonry on the low mound east of the eastern ditch. 
  The castle proper was in two portions, the first a building about 30 by 15 feet (9.1 by 4.6 m) east of the main building and not on the same orientation. It is not now possible to state its period or use: it may have been a barn, or even a chapel. The second was an oblong block 56' 6" by 26' 8" (17.2 by 8.1 m)  internally, with attached turrets at the two northern corners and a larger turret or wing on the south. The south wing has entirely disappeared except for short lengths of its walls, and these are certainly additions to the main south wall, to which they have been bonded. The walls of the main block are from 5 ³⁄₄ to 6 feet (1.75 to 1.83 m) thick and contain 2-inch (5.1 cm) fish-tailed loopholes as shown on the plan and detail drawings. The loopholes have been very neatly built up with masonry, faced with the same kind of ashlar as that in the rest of the interior; the courses are carefully lined through, though not bonded, and triangular stones are neatly cut out to fit the narrow part of the embrasure and even to fit into the fish-tailed sill. The embrasure of the loophole in the east gable was not entirely blocked; the upper part of it became a cupboard with a giblet check cut in each jamb for its door, and a heavily barred window took the place of a loophole on the westmost bay of the south front. This window was surrounded by quarter-round moulding of 2 ¹⁄₄-inch (5.7 cm) radius and the edges of the loopholes are neatly rounded.
  The west end of the building has marked resemblance in plan to the east end of Haughton Castle. At its north corner there is a turret 9' 7" by I3' 10" (2.92 by 4.22 m)  internally with walls 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 m) thick, having an external base course which butts irregularly against the double chamfered base of the main building. At the south corner, a narrow door with chamfered jambs and sill gives entrance to what must have been either a mural stair or a small turret; this formed a weak point both structurally and strategically and was twice strengthened and reconstructed. Beside the door is a fireplace resembling (even in its dimensions) that at Haughton, and obviously an insertion as it blocks one of the earlier archery embrasures. Its projecting hood was supported on a pair of plain splayed corbels. Both in the turret and the fireplace there is much thin flat-bedded rubble, a feature also found at Haughton. The north front has two broad buttresses, both of which are additions to the work; one of them has still two weathered courses on its face, and the other is incomplete. From their setting out (see plan) these buttresses were built with the north-west turret but earlier than the north-east one. This north turret seems to have replaced a mural stair or small chamber like that at the south-west corner, and the lower part of the earlier corner can be seen inside it, for it has no door. Its walls are both thinner and rougher than those elsewhere, and internally are of a deep red colour. They have never been plastered, but the whole of the rest of the interior, whether rubble in the turret or ashlar in the central space, has been skimmed with a thin coat of plaster. neatly finished to a straight 1 ¹⁄₂-inch (3.8 cm) edge.
  The north and south sides of the building have double base courses externally, but these are not returned across the gables. From the south-east corner, a wall 28 inches (71 cm) thick ran down the south scarp of the hill all the way to a ditch which runs in a curve all round castle and hill, passing through the two already me
caption: Floor plan.
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