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With
comedian and active conservationist, Griff Rhys Jones, at the helm,
viewers will be asked to vote for and then help save one of 30 of
our most endangered buildings.
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| The
chimmney at Brackenhill Tower. |
Brackenhill
Tower
Brackenhill Tower at Longtown near Carlisle is one of the 30 buildings.
It's an exceptional example of a fortified Border tower house. Experts
say that what makes it even rarer is that it's a Scottish-style
tower sitting on English soil and is pretty much intact - even if
it is in a precarious position.
With
five feet thick walls of Cumbrian sandstone and 19th Century additions,
it now sits rather forlornly among prefab buildings on a dairy farm.
Restoration
of the tower is an opportunity to highlight the fascinating history
of these cattle thieves and mercenaries who terrorised the border
country after years of bloody conflict left it in a state of lawlessness.
Brackenhill
tower is a type of building known as a 'pele tower'. This is a small
defensive building about 10m x 15m and of two or three floors height.
The ground floor of a pele would be used for the storage of goods
and livestock whilst the upper floors were the living accomodations.
During
the many border conflicts, the pele towers were a place of refuge
for when the Reivers were abroad.
The
tower in (much) more detail »
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