The Middle Tower

Here the mind’s ear is sore press’t

To catch but one sweet blessèd breath

Drawn from out an happy heart.

This tower they call the Middle….

What hath become of both the end and start,

And which fine joker hath brought forth

This gloomy riddle?

 

This, the first tower encountered on entering the castle, dates from 1280, though it was restored in 1717. It was too near the outer walls to be much used as a prison, but the name of one eminent prisoner appears in the ancient records, that of Laurence Shirley, Earl Ferrers. In 1760 he murdered his bailiff Johnson, shooting him with a pistol, for which foul deed he was taken to Tyburn to be hanged. Always elegant, the earl wore silver-embroidered clothes and made his final journey in his own carriage drawn by six horses. His entitlement, as an earl, to be hanged by a silken cord, was denied. He swung from a common hempen rope.

So was it his eccentric spirit which, a few years ago (1977), terrified two painters working within the Middle Tower? In broad daylight they heard the echoing sound of footsteps pacing the battlemented roof above. At first each thought the other was responsible and so was not alarmed. And then, when both were later working together in the same room … the measured pacing suddenly commenced. With dawning horror their eyes followed the path of the sounds beyond the ceiling – to pause – then to retrace its route.

Assistance was called for, and a thorough search revealed no physical presence nor any hiding-place. No battlements connect this tower with any other. Yet again and again during the next few days the footsteps were heard.

Was it the murderous earl – or some other, unrecorded felon, whose restless soul finds no peace?

Water Lane – Bloody Tower and Wakefield Tower on the left