The Cow Tower, Norwich: a detailed survey and partial reinterpretation

NOTES

• Field Officer (Norwich), Norfolk Archaeological Unit.
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• Postgraduate student, University of East Anglia.
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• Freelance documentary researcher.
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• Independent archaeologist; Chairman, British Brick Society.
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• A. D. Saunders, ‘The Cow Tower, Norwich: An East Anglian Bastille?’, Medieval Archaeol., 29 (1985), 109–19.
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• Norfolk Record Office (hereafter NRO): Case 18a Chamberlains' Book 1384–1448 Probable reference in account for 1386/87 f.-7d. Certain reference in account for 1398/99 f.29.
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• NRO Case 3. St Helen Private Deed Holmstrete 105. 1450; and NRO Case 17b Domesday Book f. 13d.
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• F. Blomefield, History of the County of Norfolk IV (London, 1805–10), 376.
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• NRO Case 3. St Helen Private Deed Holmstete 35, 37. 1267.
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• NRO DCN 45 Private Deed Holmstrete 853.
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• NRO Case 17b. Domesday Book f-33d.
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• Blomefield, op. cit. in note 8, 402.
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• Ibid.
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• Calendar of Patent Rolls 1377–81, 121, quoted by H. L. Turner, Town Defences in England and Wales (London, 1970), 137
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• 39 s. 0½d. in 1386/87 to a carpenter and a labourer for work (necessitating iron nails) ‘apud le pale’ may refer to this paling: NRO Chamberlains' Book 1384–1488 f-7d.
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• W. Hudson and J. C. Tingey, The Records of the City of Norwich I (Norwich, 1906), lx.
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• NRO Case 26 f. 2 (the copy kept by the Great Hospital).
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• NRO Case 18a. Chamberlains' Book 1384–1448 f. 4.
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• Ibid., f. 4d.
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• R. Fitch, Gates of Norwich (Norwich, 1861), xi–xiv.
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• An item of 20d. spent on reeds may possibly be associated with work on the tower. NRO Chamberlain's Book 1384–1448 f. 29. See also note 25.
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• Ibid., f. 5, account for 1338/39.
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• See L. F. Salzman, Building in England down to 1540 (Oxford, 1967) for all building terms and information.
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• Saunders, op. cit. in note 5, 115.
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• Cf. Salzman, op. cit. in note 23, pl. 6b and E. C. Fernie and A. B. Whittingham, ‘Communar and Pitancer Rolls of Norwich Cathedral Priory’, Norfolk Rec. Soc., XLI (Norwich, 1972), 35.
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• W. Rye (ed.), Calendar of the Freemen of Norwich 1317–1603 (London, 1888).
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• Fitch, op. cit. in note 20, xvii.
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• Ibid., and see note 14.
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• Ibid.
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• NRO Cases 3 and 4. Private Deeds Holmstrete 1425.
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• See note 7.
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• NRO Case 10f.
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• NRO Case 17b. Domesday Book f. 68.
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• Fitch, op. cit. in note 20, xx.
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• NRO Case 18a. Chamberlains' Accounts 1537–47 f. 113.
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• NRO Case 18a. Book of Chamberlains'Accounts 1541–50, entries for 2 and 23 June 1543.
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• Op. cit. in note 35, f. 191.
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• Op. cit. in note 35, f. 205.
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• F. W. Russell, Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk (London 1859).
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• Ibid.
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• NRO Case 24a. Great Hospital Account 1549/50.
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• Op. cit. in note 36, f. 329.
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• NRO Case 18d. Proceedings of the Assembly 1553–83, f. 105.
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• Ibid., f. 115.
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• NRO Case 16c. Mayor's Court Paper 47.3.
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• J. A. Wight, Brick Building in England (London, 1972), 339.
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• Norwich, Colman and Rye Library, E. A. Tillett, Scrapbook 13.
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• Ibid.
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• W. Hudson and J. C. Tingey, The Records of the City of Norwich II (Norwich, 1910), 52.
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• A. Leach and J. Bilson, ‘The Building of the North Bar at Beverley’, Trans. E. Riding Antiq. Soc. (1896).
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• M. W. Atkin, ‘The Chalk Tunnels of Norwich,’ Norfolk Archaeol., XXXVIII iii, (1983), 313–20.
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• Hudson and Tingey, op. cit. in note 49, 135.
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• F. W. Brooks, ‘A Medieval Brickyard at Hull,’ J. Brit. Archaeol. Assoc., IV (1939), 151–74.
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• Op. cit. in note 5.
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• Saunders disagrees; op. cit. in note 5, 111.
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• Op. cit. in note 5, 114.
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• Saunders, op. cit. in note 5, 109–19. It is perhaps worth noting here that a brick tower (De Bijlhouwerstoren), remarkably similar to the Cow Tower although integrated into a continuous section of walling, formerly existed at Utrecht in the Netherlands, as part of the city defences. This tower too had a semicircular stair-turret on the side away from the field. Numerous drawings of the tower survive, but its details are best seen in a photograph taken early during its demolition in 1872, reproduced in L. C. van der Vlerk et al., Utrecht ommuurd (Vianen, 1983), Fig. 21.
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• Saunders, op. cit. in note 5, 114.
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• The use of brick as facing to other materials was certainly not general in the Middle Ages, as numerous ruinous buildings testify. But it may have been somewhat more common than is usually realized. Certainly the earliest work at Queens' College, Cambridge (1448 onwards) is of clunch faced with brick: Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, An Inventory of… the City of Cambridge (London, 1959), 168. Although published accounts do not seem to mention the fact, a good deal of the work at Caister Castle, Norfolk (1432 onwards) is of cobbles, often used as the core to brick facings: personal observation by D. H. Kennet and T. P. Smith, 1987.
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• Here I am in agreement with the principal authors of this paper, contra Saunders, op. cit. in note 5, III.
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• Ibid., 114.
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• According to Walter Rye, the top of the Cow Tower was damaged by Captain Drury of the king's side: quoted in J. Wentworth Day, Norwich through the Ages (Ipswich, 1976), 60.
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