Building record 12000/3 - Chester City Walls - Bonewaldesthorne's Tower

Bonewaldesthorne's Tower (or at least a tower at this location) is known from documentary sources to have been built by 1249 – 1261 (6, 7), but was rebuilt or altered at the same time that the Water Tower (CHER 12000/1) and the Spur Wall (CHER 12000/2) were constructed between 1322 and 1325, after this time, it became the gatehouse for the Water Tower. It is a rectangular tower of coursed red sandstone rubble with a rounded projection on the south side that contains a fireplace and a stairway, lit by a single loop to the upper floor which is not accessible to casual visitors. The interior of the tower has been much altered: the ground floor is entered from the north-west angle of the city walls by a simple pointed archway and a similar arch has been driven through the opposite wall to provide access to the Spur Wall, and there is a wide broken window opening to the north. The tower is little more than a defended entrance to the Spur Wall leading to the Water Tower (1). The masonry of the south-west quadrant of the tower suggests that it was originally intended as a drum tower, but that during the rebuilding it was squared off to the north, to the line of the Spur Wall and rebuilt according to a square plan with a canted south-west corner above wall-walk level (5).

<1> Renn, DF, 1958, The Water Tower at Chester, Renn D F 1958 45/56-60 (Article in Journal). SCH5753.

<2> Pevsner N & Hubbard E, 1971, The Buildings of England: Cheshire, /155 (Book). SCH3078.

<3> Morris, Rupert H (Rev.), 1894, Chester in the Plantagenet & Tudor Reigns, /245 (Book). SCH946.

<5> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 470118 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

<6> Donald Insall Associates, Chester City Walls Conservation Management Plan, R3251 (Client Report). SCH6603.

<7> Lewis C.P & Thacker A.T. (eds), 2005, Victoria County History - A History of the County of Chester: Volume Vii, The City of Chester - The City of Chester, Culture, Buildings, Institutions, p222 (Book). SCH6522.