Old Vicarage Dovecote

On my travels recently, I seem to have developed a new role for myself as a bit of a dovecoteologist. They just keep leaping out of fields at me, asking to be given a shout out on the Fabulous North!

This is The Old Vicarage Dovecote at Embleton.

It sits in a field just north of the Holy Trinity Church and can be accessed via a small snickety gate at the back of the graveyard. We combined our visit with a look around the beautiful church and a peep at the pele tower there, which was part of old the vicarage.

The dovecote is 18th century and quite plain in appearance, but impressively intact. It's made from red bricks in a Flemish Garden Wall bond with a beautiful Mediterranean style pantile roof, looking like something from the road to Deià rather than Christon Bank! The deep blue sky helped.

The detailing just under the roof of little side angled, kicked out bricks looked jaunty and really punctuated the plainness of the structure adding a decorative flourish. In reading about it, I learned it was termed 'Stepped cogged cornicing at the eaves of the pyramidal pan tiled roof.' Sounds good to me!

The dovecote was originally on land known as The Glebe Field, adjacent to the church, and significant because it was the heart of medieval Embleton and the site of the original village.

Three of the village treasures, the church, the pele tower and the dovecote were all triangulated within the same view. However, about 20 years ago, a row of houses was built across the Glebe Field, seen by some to have sliced the site in two. You can see the division of the land in this picture here from Google Earth. The isolated structure to the left of the picture is the dovecote.

Prior to the new development, the dovecote would have been a prominent feature in the field, easily seen from the churchyard. A planning report suggested that the new houses were seen to visually separate the relationship between the church and dovecote and restricted the views.

The brick tower and pigeon clad pan tiles did look a little incongruous in its setting, but then I remembered that the Glebe Field and dovecote were there first.

I thought its plainness was beautiful and kind of French looking, and that it was sad that it was a little out of sight. I chatted to a lady who said it blocked her view and that she hated the noise and the mess of the pigeons. Each to their own.

The structure is Grade II and listed and looked like it was currently the rental property of a handful of sheep, kept company by some rather glorious grey Columba Livia... let's go all out and give them their Sunday best Latin name, those oily necked, necking on, coo cooing common pigeons, living it large, winging it, squatting on the Glebe land.

This painting of Embleton Front Street by Borders painter H L Robinson in 1904 possibly shows the dovecote by the vicarage. What do you think?

If a dovecote makes you coo, walk around the block to find the Sunny Brae Dovecote.