Morpeth, Cockle Park

ringsCockle Park is a Grade-1 listed tower house thought to date to the early sixteenth century, the tower being built, it is believed, around 1520 for Sir William, 4th Lord Ogle. It then passed to the Bothal Estates whose later owners became the Dukes of Portland. In the nineteenth century it became the centre of the Duke's experimental farm. The building was altered during the seventeenth century and refenestrated c.1790. The L-plan building has a stone flag roof and is built from squared stone with dressings. A stair turret projects at the northern end of the east face and there is a seventeenth-century stair projection in the centre of the west wall. The building has three storeys and an attic. A brick partition wall inserted in the eighteenth century divided the building into two dwellings. The southern two bays are apparently completely remodelled. The northern end of the tower retains barrel vaults to the ground floor and mural chambers, a stone newel stair, ground- and first-floor fireplaces and a well-preserved second-floor garderobe. The southern rooms show eighteenth-century doors, panelled shutters and fireplaces. The attic floor has been removed. The roof structure of tie beam and principal trusses is of sixteenth- or seventeenth-century date and possibly contemporary with the original building. Analysis and dating by tree-ring analysis were commissioned by English Heritage.