England · Still standing
Chipchase Castle
Chipchase Castle is a 17th‑century Jacobean mansion built against and incorporating a substantial 14th‑century pele tower, located north of Hadrian's Wall near Wark on Tyne in Northumberland. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade I listed building; the estate is privately owned with the grounds open to the public and the castle occasionally open to visitors.
Its prime
1621
Today
Still standing
As it stood in 1621
What Chipchase Castle looked like in its prime.
A large four‑storey battlemented pele tower of pale sandstone stands attached to a lower three‑storey Jacobean mansion block with regular rows of stone mullioned windows. The tower has a crenellated parapet; the mansion displays multiple tall chimney stacks along a pitched roofline. A lower gabled wing with arched openings adjoins the main range to the east. The house sits behind a wide grassy forefield with mature trees to one side; stone is weathered grey‑beige.
Its story
The story of Chipchase Castle.
Walter Heron's Tower and the Survey of 1541
Chipchase stands north of Hadrian's Wall near Wark on Tyne, between Bellingham and Hexham in Northumberland. The Heron family came to the manor by the marriage of Walter Heron to the Chipchase heiress, and in the mid-14th century Walter built a massive four-storey battlemented tower house on the site of an earlier house.
A survey of 1541 described a "fare tower" with a "manor of stone joined thereto", then owned by John Heron.
Cuthbert Heron's Jacobean Rebuilding, 1621–1644
In 1621 Cuthbert Heron demolished the house beside the tower and built a Jacobean mansion in its place, leaving the medieval tower standing and attached to the new work. He served as High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1625.
His first son George was killed at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, in the service of Charles I.
Herons, Allgood, Reed and Taylor, 1727–1861
Cuthbert Heron's second son, also Cuthbert, was created a baronet by Charles II. He ran into financial problems, and those difficulties eventually led the Herons to sell the estate in 1727 to George Allgood, a Newcastle merchant.
John Reed, a Newcastle upon Tyne banker, acquired the estate in 1734 and carried out major alterations, among them a classical façade applied to the old tower. The failure of Reed's family bank caused his descendants to sell to the Greys of Backworth in 1821 to defray debts, and the Greys sold on to Hugh Taylor in 1861.
Private Ownership and Protection since 1951
Chipchase was scheduled as an ancient monument on 9 April 1951 and listed Grade I on 20 October 1952. It has remained in private hands. The novelist Paul Torday, author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, lived at Chipchase with his second wife Penelope, née Taylor, who had inherited the estate.
The grounds are open to the public; the castle itself opens to visitors only in June.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1621.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Chipchase Castle, including 1 interior: interior of the pele tower (interior). Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Clans who held Chipchase Castle.
The families that held Chipchase Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Heron
Acquired the Manor of Chipchase by marriage to the Chipchase heiress; John Heron recorded as owner in 1541.
Acquired by Newcastle banker John Reed in 1734; sold by his descendants in 1821 after the family bank failed.
Held by the Greys of Backworth, 1821–1861.
Bought by Hugh Taylor in 1861.
Nearby
