Asby History Group
sat17sep13:20Asby History GroupVisit to Fox Tower13:20
Event Details
Visit to Fox Tower, Hellbeck Hall, near Brough Time to be confirmed. You may have seen this structure – which, from a distance, looks for all the world like an
Event Details
Visit to Fox Tower, Hellbeck Hall, near Brough
Time to be confirmed.
You may have seen this structure – which, from a distance, looks for all the world like an old Cornish tin mine – from the Kirkby-Stephen to Brough road or even from the Drybeck Road. Here’s a chance to take a much closer look.
Fox Tower was built as part of a large estate for John Metcalf Carleton in 1775. Carleton was an industrial entrepreneur who lived at Helbeck Hall, a Georgian Gothic style mansion he had built, just north of Brough. The function of the Tower remains a puzzle.
It stands on a semicircular bastion and is itself round, with a much taller round tower attached, tapering like a chimney. Large arched windows….and a fireplace show that it was a banqueting house – dining room above, services below – and the tight spiral stair in the turret suggests a viewing platform.
– Hyde, M & Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England, Cumbria, 2010, p191
The present owners of Helbeck Hall, David and Katherine Stead, have recently created a ‘permissive path’ of a little over a mile, leading from a new car-parking area, up to Fox Tower. It goes over what would probably be described as ‘moderate’ terrain.
On this same Saturday, the Steads are opening their gardens, as part of one of the ‘Heritage Weekends’
All welcome:
AHG members free; non-members £5
Time
(Saturday) 13:20