Castlefacts³

Corby Gates

Has been described as a Questionable Pele Tower, and also as a Questionable Bastle

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains

Name	Corby Gates
Alternative Names	Corbrig-gate; Corbriggate
Historic Country	Cumberland
Modern Authority	Cumbria
1974 Authority	Cumbria
Civil Parish	Alston Moor

At Corby Gates is a square building circa 6.5m by 6.5m with walls 1.0m thick, in the middle of a line of barns. It consists of large, uncoursed, rubblework. This may have been one of the 22 tenements and shielings held by Nicholas de Vipont at Nent and Corbrig in 1315. The Cumbria Sites and Monuments Record records it as a possible tower house incorporated in a later structure. There are no traces of Mediaeval occupation. (PastScape)

Gatehouse Comments

The early C14 post mortem inquisition shows the Corby Gates names existed at that time and may have been one or more holdings, although the use of the term shieling in the inquisition may suggest one seasonal occupation. It seems highly unlikely the remains date back to the C13. There is no suggestion of a Vipont residence here and the tenants were not of gentry status. In this area a square pele-house type bastle of C16/C17 date seems the most likely explanation.

- Philip Davis

Not scheduled

Not Listed

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)

1389101

County Historic Environment Record

maps.cumbria.gov.uk/eggp/eggp.aspx?dept=Environment&scriptname=1%20Historic%20Environment

OS Map Grid Reference	NY733471
Latitude	54.8180809020996
Longitude	-2.41673994064331
Eastings	373300
Northings	547100