Castlefacts³

High Mains

Has been described as a Rejected Timber Castle (Motte), and also as a Rejected Pele Tower, and also as a Rejected Fortified Manor House

There are no visible remains

Name	High Mains
Alternative Names	Denton Mains
Historic Country	Cumberland
Modern Authority	Cumbria
1974 Authority	Cumbria
Civil Parish	Upper Denton

Denton Hall. Here the base-court is 85 yards long, with a ditch about 8 yards broad, and a rampart partly round it, extending to two sides, beyond which is a smaller ditch; adjoining the west side is a smaller enclosure in which is a mound; later on a pele tower was built on the mound, replacing the wooden house, and now there are farm-buildings in which the stump of the pele serves as a dairy. The so-called 'Saxon village' at High Mains, west of Over Denton church, is probably such another place. (VCH 1901)

Gatehouse Comments

Marked as 'CAMP (remains of)' on 1st edition OS map of 1868. A building is also marked. Nothing now visible on air photo and no antiquity is marked on modern OS maps. Recorded as Temporary Roman camp in the Cumbria HER, apparently not recorded in PastScape.The complete failure for any other author to note this site and absence from the several good gazetteers on Cumbrian medieval fortifications is significant.

- Philip Davis

Not scheduled

Not Listed

County Historic Environment Record

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

OS Map Grid Reference	NY606650
Latitude	54.9781188964844
Longitude	-2.61684989929199
Eastings	360610
Northings	565000