Longthorpe Tower
| Longthorpe Tower | |
|
Northamptonshire | |
|---|---|
 Longthorpe Tower | |
| Type: | Tower |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TL16209838 |
| Location: | 52°34’15"N, 0°17’13"W |
| Village: | Longthorpe |
| History | |
| Information | |
| Condition: | Intact |
| Owned by: | English Heritage |
Longthorpe Tower is a 14th-century three-storey tower in the village of Longthorpe in the Soke of Peterborough in Northamptonshire. The tower is famous for its well-preserved set of mediæval murals.
Details
Longthorpe is now a residential area of Peterborough so the tower finds itself surrounded by townscape. It is about two miles to the west of the city centre.
At the start of the 14th century, Robert Thorpe built the tower an extension to an existing fortified manor house; Thorpe had worked his way to relative wealth through the local Peterborough Abbey, and the tower may have been something of a status symbol.[1] The tower has three stories, and the first floor was originally designed as living space for Thorpe.[2]
The tower is best known for its English mediæval wall paintings, carried out around 1330.[3] The paintings show religious, secular and moral themes and the quality is comparatively good for a provincial work.[4] The paintings were whitewashed over around the time of the Reformation and remained hidden until their rediscovery in the 1940s.[5] Historian Clive Rouse considers that "no comparable scheme...of such completeness and of such early date exists in England".[6]
The property is now owned by English Heritage and is a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Monument protected by law.[7]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Longthorpe Tower) |
References
- ↑ Pettifer, p.167; Pounds, p.284.
- ↑ Pounds, p.284.
- ↑ Emery, p.475.
- ↑ Pettifer, p.167; Emery, p.475.
- ↑ Pettifer, p.167.
- ↑ Pounds, p.284.
- ↑ "Longthorpe Tower". Pastscape.org.uk. http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=364093. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
Books
- Emery, Anthony. (2006) Greater Mediæval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Southern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-58132-5.
- Pettifer, Adrian. (2002) English Castles: a Guide by Counties. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-782-5.
- Pounds, Norman John Greville. (1994) The Mediæval Castle in England and Wales: a social and political history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-45828-3.
- Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles of East Anglia (Malvern) p21
- Taylor, Alison, 1986, Castles of Cambridgeshire (Cambridge)
- King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol2 p319-20
- Fry, P.S., 1980, Castles of the British Isles (David and Charles) p256
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, 1961, Buildings of England: Northamptonshire (Penguin) p284-5
- Downman, E.A., 1906, in Serjeantson, R.M., Ryland, W. and Adkins, D. (eds), VCH Northampton Vol2 p456-7, 459
- Turner, T H, 1851, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol1 p153
Journal articles
- Casagrande, Gino and Kleinhenz, Christopher, 1985, 'Literary and Philosophical Perspectives on the Wheel of the Five Senses in Longthorpe Tower' Traditio Vol41 p311-27
- [Fletcher], 1969, Mediæval Archaeology Vol13 p273
- Rouse, E.Clive and Baker, Audley, 1955, 'The wall-paintings at Longthorpe Tower' Archaeologia Vol96 pp1–57
- Country Life Vol101 p604
- Yun, Bee, 2007, 'A Visual Mirror of Princes: The Wheel on the Mural of Longthorpe Tower' Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes Vol70 pp1–32
Guidebooks
- 2001, Longthorpe Tower (English Heritage)
- Rouse, E.Clive, 1949 and 1987, Longthorpe Tower (HMSO)