I came across a reference to this place for the first time today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Castle

 

A print of Bruce Castle, 1815. (courtesy of www.antiqueprints.com)

As thorough a web page as I can find on this ?castle site's history.

http://www.mickbruff.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/...rucecastle.html

 

...and at present

http://www.geocities.com/summerhillroad2002/brucecastle.htm

Another engraving - 1773.

Details on this place.

 

Tottenham had a manor-house, with a hall and other rooms, granges, fish-ponds, and garden, in 1254.The 'Lordship House', so called in 1619 when it had already given its name to Lordship Lane, was originally the manor-house of Bruces, retained in the hands of Joan Gedney in 1455-6. It was reconstructed on or near its old site by Sir William Compton, better known as builder of the mansion at Compton Wynyates (Warws.),and had presumably been completed by c. 1516, when Queen Margaret of Scotland stayed there to be greeted by her brother, Henry VIII . Nothing remains of Sir William's work at Tottenham except perhaps the red-brick, two-storey circular tower, of unknown purpose, which stands to the south-west of the house. The rest was rebuilt as a typical late Elizabethan country residence, presumably after Norden had noted it in 1593 as Lord Compton's 'proper ancient house'. Together with its outbuildings, including a dovecot, orchards, and gardens, the manor-house covered some 5 a. in 1585, when it remained in the lord's hand. It was depicted, with the older tower, as a substantial building on the map made for the earl of Dorset in 1619, at which date the grounds comprised some 9 a.; to the north-west, mid-way between the mansion and the church, lay a tenement called the wash-house, which, with the manor-house itself, Lordsmead, and other nearby lands, formed a compact estate of 86 a. which had been leased for 21 years to Sir Thomas Penistone, Bt. Bruce Castle, as the mansion was later called, presumably again served as the lord's residence when Lord Coleraine carried out alterations c. 1684. Further building work was effected in the 18th century by both the Hare and Townsend families.

If Bruce's Manor was fortified this place would qualify for a move into English Castles. However the link provided states that it never had any military function, though this does not mean that it did not have any defensive features.

It probably did since it would be unwise not to in those days, but this is only an assumption. There is also mention of a moat at a later date, but this may have been ornamental as was common is tudor times.

The link also says that recent investigations show that the old tower was built to house falcons.

At a short distance from the high road is Bruce Castle, erected in the 17th century on the site of, a castle once possessed and occupied by Robert Bruce, father of Robert King of Scotland, who presented the church and rectory to the canons of the Holy Trinity in the middle of the 12th century, but Henry VIII., after rebuilding the castle, presented the living to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's Cathedral, to whom it still belongs. The castle was also visited by Queen Elizabeth.

...from 1868 Gazetteer.

An article " Drought holds key to centuries-old mystery" in the Guardian Aug 2/06 @ www.arts.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329543988-110427,00.html mentions a structure next to Bruce castle etc. It turns out the structure may be a unique Tudor water tower. A dig is currently underway.

Thanks for that Targer, I'd be interested in reading the article but the link doesn't seem to work. I'll find another way in. A water tower? Unusual, but not inconceivable, the other suggestion had been a Falcon House. Maybe a Dovecote? I hope they publish the results of the dig.

Drought holds key to centuries-old mystery

 

Maev Kennedy

Wednesday August 2, 2006

Guardian Unlimited

 

 

Archaeologists puzzling over a 500-year-old architectural enigma in a drought-bleached suburban park believe they have finally solved the mystery of its identity - and that the key lies with the Tudors' struggles to cope with water shortages similar to those we face today.

The mysterious structure in the heart of Bruce Castle Park in Tottenham, north London, has in the past been variously explained as a garden folly, or a platform for flying hawks.

 

 

But it is now believed to be a unique surviving Tudor water tower.

Archaeologists uncovered, to their astonishment, picturesque cruciform windows buried meters below the present ground level and not seen for centuries, and walls that continue still deeper into the bone-dry clay.

 

Roy Stevenson, who is supervising the excavation for the Museum of London archaeology service, said: "Without any hype I have never come across anything like it in my life. I can't prove it without re-excavating every brick built Tudor tower in the country, but I feel I would have heard if there was another one out there. We may indeed now have to go back and re-examine the excavation records of lost towers and see if they could also be water towers."

 

The Grade I-listed tower and the handsome manor house beside it, now a local history museum, were built in open countryside, but have survived into London suburbia startlingly unaltered.

 

An exceptionally rare painting, found in fragments in the attics of the museum and restored with a lottery grant, now back over the fireplace in the main hall, shows both the house and tower in the 17th century, and though the details of the tower are hard to make out, it seems to continue well below the level of the garden wall.

 

The tower probably dates from around 1505, and is even older than the mansion, though both stand on the site of a medieval manor.

 

The estate has rich royal connections. Queen Elizabeth visited and Henry VIII met his sister Margaret of Scotland there when it was owned by his powerful courtier, Sir William Compton.

 

The manor was also once owned by Robert the Bruce, though he probably never stayed there, so the cherished local legend that it was there he saw the spider and resolved to launch a further onslaught on the English in Scotland cannot be true.

 

The dig began as a community excavation by the Museum of London, involving amateurs and swarming with school groups, looking for the medieval foundations.

 

The Victorian rubble and earth around the tower produced tons of broken roof tiles, and tokens for good behaviour from the Victorian school run there by the postal service reformer Rowland Hill and his family.

 

Gradually the diggers realised that the rosy red-brick walls plunged ever deeper into the earth.

 

The dig should have finished at the end of national archaeology week, but archaeologists persisted. They stuck a camera and a light in through the rediscovered windows, and revealed no treasure except a dimly visible vaulted chamber. Full exploration may have to wait for next year.

 

"What we have here is a Tudor redbrick iceberg," said archaeologist Ian Blair. "It looks as if there's almost as much underground as above."

 

They believe the tower stored water from an encircling pond, fed by channels controlled by sluice gates, from the nearby Moselle River - variously spelled Mosse Hill and Mouse Hill in older documents, and the origin of the Muswell Hill place name.

 

The tower, variously explained as a vantage point for watching hunting or jousting, or holding doves for the Tudor stewpot, has been baffling antiquarians for centuries.

 

In 1705 the then owner, the second Lord Colerane, wrote that he kept the tower, most awkwardly sited a few metres from his front door, in good repair "in respect to its great antiquity more than conveniency... although I am not able to discover the founder thereof".

Extremely interesting .... Thanks Much Targer!!