Heiferlaw Tower

Sometimes going the wrong way is fabulously fortuitous, a real happy accident, an eye opener you'd not have got if you'd stuck to your guns!

Heiferlaw Tower was just that, a pickup stopping chunk of stone on the brow of Heiferlaw Hill, sandwiched between Alnwick and South Charlton.

Blunt and boxy, we wondered why we'd never noticed this before on a road we've ridden many times. The truth is that up until recent times, Heiferlaw Tower was landlocked by Lodgepole Pine, which have recently been removed to reveal this sober stone structure.

Prominent on the hillside, Heiferlaw is the remains of a tower house with close associations with Alnwick Abbey, of which only the Alnwick Abbey Gatehouse remains now. The tower belonged to the abbey and was never a place of permanent residence.

We sought permission from some people who live there to access the field as there was no footpath or obvious right of way, however the tower can be seen clearly from the road, just not at such close quarters.

It's a three storied affair, or would have been when it had a roof, stairs and a functioning fireplace. It's rectangular in shape and has wonderfully wide walls of 1.2 meters.

On our approach, over the soft rain sodden soil and grasses, the tower looked a little foreboding and unforgiving. With no visible door to the south face, there was just a strange punched out hole in the stone, which we peeked in through. Two windows, one open, one blocked up and what seemed like a coat of arms. It turns out that the ground level peep hole we were looking through was also a quatrefoil window which had been recut in the 18th Century during renovations.

But the tower dates back to way earlier than that.

The tower was used as a lookout tower for Alnwick Abbey and can be dated by the heraldry stones on two of the walls, which show the Alnwick Abbey and Percy Arms. It's also recorded in a 1540 survey of the Abbey's possessions.

The Percy Arms show a pair of handcuffs in the centre of the tableaux, which was a symbol used by the 4th Earl of Northumberland. Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, was an important English aristocrat who helped Henry VII take the throne by holding back his troops at the Battle of Bosworth. Henry Percy also built the tower house at Hulne Friary.

Look at the hugeness of the blocks that built this tower.

The entrance to the tower is through a pointed arched doorway. We noticed the huge holes which would have held the drawbar to keep the inhabitants safe inside and the baddies out!

The first and second floors would have been set on great wooden beams. You can see the square holes in the walls that would've carried them. There are two mammoth stone fireplaces and a variety of windows and gunloops.

The east side window facing seaward had an ornate cusped top, what looks like a gun loop in the middle floor and a strange ground-level slit, presumably also for defensible purposes.

Despite the absence of a roof and parapets, there are a multitude of stone spouts which could have been used practically to drain water from the roof or could have been used defensively to pour boiling water or molten lead on attackers, although with Alnwick Abbey being inhabited by white-robed cannons, we hope their pouring was more peaceable than molten lead!

It's unlikely that anyone lived here and it was more used as a lookout or watchtower to alert those who needed to know about Border Reiver raids. It was high up and strategically placed for the monks to be on the look out for bad blood coming over the border!

No one poured anything on our pate, so we left feeling safe and a little more knowledgeable about something which half an hour previously we knew nothing about!

A dynamic and delightful diversion indeed!

From the parking, take the small road to the left, looking over the gate, you can see Heiferlaw Tower, which is on private land. We did ask some people who lived there if it was ok to access the tower, and they were friendly and responsive, but highlighted that they didn't own the tower and that we must shut the gates. There were livestock in the field, so please be respectful and ensure all gates are closed and that you don't take dogs or cause a distraction to the livestock. Better still, if someone's around or at the nearby house, ask for permission or just observe from the gate, where you can get really good views.