Longthorpe Tower History and Paintings

Longthorpe Tower was built around AD 1300. It is a very well preserved example of a solar tower, containing the private apartments of the owner of the fortified house.

The Tower was part of a wider manor house owned by the Thorpe family, who went from peasants to knights in three generations – a remarkable example of Medieval social mobility. During the reign of King John, they were peasants who purchased their freedom, by 1260 they had become knights and built a manor house at Longthorpe along with a new chapel – today St Botolph’s church. The Tower was added as a status symbol, ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ around 1300, and the wall paintings around 1350.

The Tower is famed for its rare medieval wall paintings, the finest such in a domestic setting in Western Europe. These were revealed during World War II when the local Home Guard were stationed in the tower and larger sections of the paintings were discovered by the tenant after the war. Their significance was quickly realised and a programme of cleaning and preservation by E Clive Rouse took place between 1946 and 1948. Such was the importance of the discovery that in 1947 the owner, Earl Fitzwilliam, presented the tower to the nation, and it was taken into the guardianship of the Secretary of State.

The rare wall paintings give a unique insight into the forms of decoration which adorned the houses of prestigious individuals in the 14th century. They contain a wealth of references to the illuminated manuscripts of the period, and include a Wheel of Five Senses, local country scenes, musicians, heraldry, religious scenes, ‘the three living and the three dead’ and a mythical creature that fires flaming poo!