Cow Tower

The Cow Tower stands beside the River Wensum in Norwich, a circular brick artillery tower built in 1398–99. It was set apart from the city walls near a bend in the river, where its height could cover the higher ground across the water. The tower was designed to hold a small garrison and store gunpowder weapons, with separate floors for living and working. Its thick walls of flint and brick contain gunports for hand cannons and wide embrasures for heavier bombards on the roof. The archaeologist T. P. Smith has called its medieval brickwork some of the finest in England. The tower was built to defend Norwich against French raids and local rebellion after years of unrest. By the 1380s the city feared attack, having already lost trade goods to French ships and suffered looting during the Peasant Revolt. Norwich already owned gunpowder weapons by 1355 and had fifty pieces by 1385, so the new tower gave them a dedicated artillery position. It formed part of a chain of river defences, linked by a timber palisade to the city wall and nearby Bishop Bridge. Construction cost around £36, paid for with 36,850 bricks and 170 cartloads of stone. Visitors today see a shell of red brick rising from the riverbank, its three storeys open to the sky. The thick walls still show the original gunports and the scars of later repairs. The river flows past the base where the tower once commanded the crossing, and the meadows around recall its old name, Cowholme. Though the floors and roof are gone, the structure remains a rare example of late 14th-century gunpowder fortification in England.