Longthorpe Tower

{{Short description|House in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England}}

{{Infobox military installation

|name = Longthorpe Tower

|location = Longthorpe, England

|coordinates = {{coord|52.5708|N|0.2869|W|type:landmark_region:GB-CAM|display=inline,title}}

|gridref = {{gbmapping|TL16209838}}

|image = 200px

|caption = Longthorpe Tower

|map_type = Cambridgeshire

|map_size = 200

|map_alt =

|map_caption = Shown within Cambridgeshire

|type = Tower

|materials = Stone

|height =

|condition = Intact

|ownership = English Heritage

|open_to_public = Yes

|controlledby =

|battles =

|events =

}}

Longthorpe Tower is a 14th-century three-storey tower in the Longthorpe area of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. It is famous for its well-preserved set of medieval murals.

Details

Longthorpe tower is located in the village of Longthorpe, now a residential area of Peterborough in the United Kingdom, about two miles (3 km) to the west of the city centre. At the start of the 14th century, Robert Thorpe built the tower as an extension to an existing fortified manor house.

Thorpe had worked his way to relative wealth through the local Peterborough Abbey, and the tower may have been something of a status symbol.Pettifer, p.167; Pounds, p.284

The tower has three stories, and the first floor was originally designed as a living space for Thorpe.Pounds, p.284

The tower is best known for its English medieval wall paintings, carried out around 1330.Emery, p.475 The paintings show religious, secular and moral themes and the quality is comparatively good for a provincial work.Pettifer, p.167; Emery, p.475 The paintings were whitewashed over around the time of the Reformation and remained hidden until their rediscovery in the 1940s.Pettifer, p.167 Historian Clive Rouse considers that "no comparable scheme...of such completeness and of such early date exists in England".Pounds, p.284

The property is now owned by English Heritage and is a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Monument protected by law.{{cite web |title=Longthorpe Tower |url=http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=364093 |publisher=Pastscape.org.uk |accessdate=2008-01-04}}

References

Bibliography

Emery, Anthony. (2006) [https://books.google.com/books?id=g7EXvaDEYioC Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Southern England.] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-58132-5}}.
Pettifer, Adrian. (2002) [https://books.google.com/books?id=47iheRUGKIEC English Castles: a Guide by Counties]. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. {{ISBN|978-0-85115-782-5}}.
Pounds, Norman John Greville. (1994) [https://books.google.com/books?id=d8babfRDfxwC The Medieval Castle in England and Wales: a social and political history.] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-45828-3}}.

=Books=

Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles of East Anglia (Malvern) p. 21
Taylor, Alison, 1986, Castles of Cambridgeshire (Cambridge)
King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 pp. 319–20
Fry, P.S., 1980, Castles of the British Isles (David and Charles) p. 256
Pevsner, Nikolaus, 1961, Buildings of England: Northamptonshire (Penguin) pp. 284–5
Downman, E.A., 1906, in Serjeantson, R.M., Ryland, W. and Adkins, D. (eds), VCH Northampton Vol. 2 pp. 456–7, 459
Turner, T. H., 1851, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol. 1 p. 153

=Journal articles=

Casagrande, Gino and Kleinhenz, Christopher, 1985, 'Literary and Philosophical Perspectives on the Wheel of the Five Senses in Longthorpe Tower' Traditio Vol. 41 p. 311-27
[Fletcher], 1969, Medieval Archaeology Vol. 13 p. 273
Rouse, E.Clive and Baker, Audley, 1955, 'The wall-paintings at Longthorpe Tower' Archaeologia Vol. 96 pp. 1–57
Country Life Vol. 101 p. 604
Yun, Bee, 2007, 'A Visual Mirror of Princes: The Wheel on the Mural of Longthorpe Tower' Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes Vol. 70 pp. 1–32