Full Report for Listed Buildings
The list description is not intended to be a complete inventory of what is listed: it is principally intended to aid identification. By law, the definition of a listed building includes the entire building (i) and any structure or object that is fixed to the said building and ancillary to it and (ii) any other structure or object that forms part of the land and has done so since before 1 July 1948, and was within the curtilage of the building, and ancillary to it, on the date on which said building was first included in the list, or on 1 January 1969, whichever was later.
Summary Description
Reference Number
26435
Building Number
Grade
II
Status
Designated
Date of Designation
28/03/2002
Date of Amendment
28/03/2002
Name of Property
Breckmanchine Tower
Address
Location
Unitary Authority
Pembrokeshire
Community
Tenby
Town
Tenby
Locality
Easting
213587
Northing
200330
Street Side
S
Location
Situated on the cliff edge in the garden of No 2 Rock Houses overlooking Iron Bar Sands.
Description
Broad Class
Defence
Period
History
Detached defensive tower probably never part of a continuous seaward wall but a single platform to defend the Breckmanchine inlet. Infilled over the years such that the outer shell only is visible and that overgrown with creeper. Norris shows the turret between 2 short stretches of walling, some 6m to the NW and 1.5m to the E. Dated by Laws to the late C13, but by Thomas to the major refurbishment of the defences in 1457. Laws in 1896 describes the interior as being infilled almost to the top, reached by 5 steps from the garden. He describes an entrance to the roof on the E side 'about 2' (0.6m) wide, which added to the 7' (2.1m) of town wall makes a base of 9' (2.7m) from E to W. The diameter from the centre to the middle of the semicircular S wall is 8' (2.4m). From the top of the tower to the lowest line of masonry is about 18' (5.4m). There is a large plain loop near the bottom, looking SE, and an oillet on the same level looking SW. Both must have been served from the basement. About 4' (1.2m) from the top there is a line of corbels. Probably the oillet was inserted.' Thomas in 1993 describes it as 'built against the cliff face..too slender to have any internal usable space: only 9'6" by 8' (2.85 by 2.4m) within the parapet, so that if walls 2' 6" (0.78m) are assumed, any space below the corbelled-out parapet would be no more than 4' 6" by 3' (1.35 by 0.9m)...This is no tower but a fighting platform at the level of the parapet.... Ivy makes it impossible to confirm Laws's description of shooting slits to a "basement".
Exterior
Rubble stone curved bastion with corbelled parapet, much overgrown with ivy.
Interior
Reason for designation
Included as a defensive tower, part of the medieval walls of Tenby. Scheduled Ancient Monument 16/2073/P007 (PEM).
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