Elsdon Tower : Description of The South Wall

Here there are a number of features which the heavy pointing renders difficult to interpret. At basement level, towards the west end of the wall, is a plain square-headed doorway, with a timber lintel, of relatively recent date; above it are traces of the gabled roof of a porch or conservatory, and above again, close to the west end, faint traces of the roof line of a taller adjacent structure.

During the 1995-8 works this doorway was cleared of plaster, showing that an area of roughly-squared stone formed the inner part of each jamb, but did not extend down to the floor; below this the jambs are of rough rubble wall core. These areas are probably patching - possibly infilled earlier openings - coeval with the insertion of the doorway. In the top of the opening, but overlapping its west wall, was a near-vertical flue-like feature.

This was a trapezoidal shaft sloping towards the external face of the wall and communicated with the floor of the recess of the western of the two first-floor windows. This opening  was initially thought to be a murder hole in the roof of an original entrance lobby (cf the Blackbird Inn, Ponteland), but there was no real evidence of there being an original doorway in this position; such a doorway could hardly have been entirely removed by its successor. Its function remains a mystery; it may have some link with similar vertical flues or channels seen above slit vents in the basements of bastles at The Raw and High Shaw. A pencilled 'Sept 8th 1884' on the stud (carrying the plaster wall) adjacent to the east end of the inner opening of the doorway may date its insertion.

East of the doorway and set quite low in the wall is a plain elongate slab, slightly recessed, that appears to be the blocking of an opening; the positioning of some smaller stones in the course above hint at a simple relieving arch. This would appear to relate to the base of the shaft descrinding from the first-floor garderobe. Further to the east, and only a little higher in level, is an upright slab in the wall which may be the blocking of a small loop of more conventional type. Higher again, and immediately to the east of the doorway, is a vertical area of disturbance with vertical alignments of stones suggesting the cutting away of the side walls of some sort of projection, which may again relate to garderobe arrangements.

The two first-floor windows both break the string-course; both are wooden cross-casements, with timber lintels, and are probably of later 18th or early 19th century date, replacing smaller square-headed windows, the blocked upper sections of which survive. Internally, above the sash window in the eastern room, the flattened four-centred head and the topmost stone of each jamb of the rear arch of its medieval predecessor were exposed.

Two similar windows, set closer together (and with their lintels directly beneath the parapet), light the second floor; to the west of these two reddish stones mark the blocking a small loop which lit the garderobe at the south-west corner of this floor.

Just above the projecting base course of the parapet is an old projecting stone spout, just west of the western second floor window. As on the north the parapet has had its central section raised and 'embattled', with a further raised block at the centre above an armorial panel; the arms, illustrated by Hodgson are interpreted by him to be those of Sir Robert Tailbois, but are more generally thought to be those of Umfraville; beneath the shield is the raised text, in black letter 'R DDREDE' which Hodgson expands to 'Robertus dominus de Rede'. Sir Robert Umfraville was lord of Redesdale 1421 - 1436.