Burton Constable Tower
In the civil parish of Burton Constable.
Modern Authority of East Riding of Yorkshire.
1974 county of Humberside.
Medieval County of Yorkshire East Riding.
OS Map Grid Reference: TA18883678
Burton Constable Tower has been described as a Pele Tower although is doubtful that it was such.
There are masonry footings remains.
This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law*.
Great Elizabethan country house of red brick with stone dressings, constructed circa 1570 for Sir Henry Constable. Remodelled between 1730-78 to designs by Lightoller, Carr and Atkinson. James Wyatt and William Collins remodelled the interior at this time. It comprises a central three-storey block with castelled end towers and two storey wings. The south side of the house has a courtyard layout. (PastScape)
The chief house at Burton Constable, mentioned from 1294, succeeded Halsham as the family's main residence, apparently in the late 15th century. The site may have been moated, a curving ditch running around the north and east of the house until its reduction in the mid 18th century to a fishpond, which remained in 1995. The early structural history of the house is obscure. A length of ashlar wall at the centre of the north elevation forms one side of a nearlysquare room, which was later heightened in brick to become a tower. It has a turret staircase at its south-west corner, and both tower and turret have a possibly 15th-century, brick corbel table below the parapet. The two-storeyed range which abuts the tower on the east appears to be structurally contemporary; that to the south is late 16th-century but replaces an older building from which a disused fireplace survives on the south face of the tower. Those northern and western ranges, together with a southern one, formed a three-sided, courtyard house which was probably still being built in 1578 but seems to have been substantially complete by the end of the century. (VCH)
Much changed possible ?C15 tower, reports of few ashlar blocks remaining.
Data > PastScape County HER Listing I. O. E.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 7008.
Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
Kent, G.H.R., 2002, 'Middle division: Burton Constable' VCH Yorkshire: East Riding Vol. 7 p. 129- online transcription
Neave, Susan, 1991, Medieval Parks of East Yorkshire (Univeristy of Hull) p. 26
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1904, Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Edward I Vol. 3 p. 114-5 No. 193 online copy
Dennison, E. and Richardson, S., 2010, Burton Constable Deserted Medieval Village, Burton Constable Hall, East Yorkshire: Level 3 Archaeological and Historical Survey (Unpublished EDAS Ltd archive report 2009/366 for the Burton Constable Foundation)