Inferior to the larger houses, there were in the county several buildings of great strength coming under the same head as the peel-houses or towers on the borders.
One of these, now only represented by a few portions of the outer walls, was Dalden Tower. The buildings appear to have formed a tower rather longer than square, standing on a slight mound. The walls were of rubble, 5 feet thick. In the east wall there is a square-headed niche, surmounted by a pediment within an ogee-headed arch, the space within which is filled with tracery. Two blank shields are upon a cornice over the pediment. The niche seems to point to the room once adjoining having been the private chapel. On the inner side of the curtain facing the west wall there appears to have been a cell with a loophole.
A more recent manor-house was built about the reign of James I., adjoining the tower on the east, and portions of it are built into the present farmhouse. For some generations it was a seat of the Royalist family of Collingwood, and, at an earlier date, of a branch of the great house of Bowes. It was a lady of this family, Maud, wife of Sir William Bowes and heiress of Sir Robert Dalden, who possessed within the old walls a curious library. In her will, made in 1420, she left to Matilda Hilton one Romaunce-boke, to Dame Eleanor Washington the boke with the knotts, to Elizabeth de Whitchester a book that is called Trystram, and to her god-daughter Maud, daughter of the Baron of Hilton, one Romaunce boke is called the Gospells. Surtees pertinently writes: "Did a romance ever actually exist under this strange title? or had the lady of Dalden met with one of Wicliffe’s Bibles, and conceived the Gospels to be a series of fabulous adventures, in which our Saviour and His Apostles were introduced to act and to moralize like the goodly personages who figure in the ancient mysteries, or in Les Jeux du Roi René d’Anjou"?
Farther to the south an old tower, oblong in shape stood at Little Eden. It was, however, taken down in the early days of last century by Mr. Rowland Burdon, who erected the present castellated house at Castle Eden. At Dinsdale, on the banks of the Tees, the remains of the ancient home of the Surtees family were excavated by the late Mr. Scott Surtees, and showed that a large gatehouse of late twelfth-century work, with vaulted chambers and a newel stair, had once stood there.
The later manor-house of the Place family retains some portions of the older building. With thick walls and low rooms with heavy beams and rafters, and an old oak staircase with a wicket, it still remains a picturesque fragment of former days. A stone originally fixed over a gateway destroyed shortly before Hutchinson compiled his history is now let into the wall on the left of the farmhouse door, and bears the arms of Place quarterly with Surtees.
The home of the Surtees’s neighbours, the allied and equally noble house of Conyers, was at Sockburn, situated on the same sweep of the Tees. Traces of the foundations of gardens and orchards alone point out the site of the old house, where Dugdale in 1666 had noted the family emblazonments in or on the building—the arms of Conyers, Vesci, Scrope, Neville, Dacre, FitzHugh, Lumley, and of the Royal Family. Surtees suggests that seven of the coats seem to have formed a rich armorial window, and that amidst them ran the motto, "REGI SECVLOR I’ MORTALI I’ VISIBILI SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA I’ SECVLA SECVLOR." When the historian wrote, "one old decaying Spanish chestnut" seemed alone to connect the deserted spot with some recollection of its ancient owners. Of the old house not one stone remains. A new house was erected about a century ago by the baronet family of Blackett, who for some generations have owned the manor. Here the far-famed Conyers falchion is preserved. The sword dates from the thirteenth century, and has a blade 2 feet and 5½ inches long. The handle is partly covered with ash, and has on the pommel two shields, the three lions of England, and an eagle displayed. The cross is engraved with decorative foliage of the period.
One of the most interesting specimens of the older fortified residences was Ludworth Tower.[14] The building, which consisted of a three-storeyed oblong tower of common limestone, stands near a brook, on a low hill, at the head of the valley in which Shadforth village lies. A lower vaulted room up till recently still contained a large open fireplace and hearthstone. The only entrance was by a small arched door leading to a spiral stone staircase, projecting from the north-west angle of the tower. Remnants of a curtain wall exist to the east, and on the west the adjoining ground has apparently been levelled by hand.
The whole appearance of the building, which has, unfortunately, in recent years[15] been allowed to fall into a ruinous condition, was dark and gloomy in the extreme. The date of its erection is fixed by the licence obtained in 1422 by Sir Thomas Holden to embattle his manor-house of Ludworth.
At Bellasis, or Belasyse, another old house, with stone walls of great thickness and moated, is now occupied by a farmer.
Hollinside, an old mansion, associated with the Hardings, of whom Ralph Harding the chronicler was a noteworthy member, still stands in ruins on a bank above the River Derwent. Originally three stories in height, and with two wings forming the three sides of a narrow court. The fourth and east side is arched over and surmounted by a tower. On the west side a turret projects in line with the south wall. The interior presents several interesting features, and an outbuilding contains a large fireplace.