Ye New Building

Valentine Hasledine, Tyrconnel's steward provides information in his household accounts on the Tower's construction. He calls it Ye New Building Upon the Hill.

In 1749 Belton maintenance team were whitewashing trees in the Park and constructing the new Necessary Houses in the gardens (privies). Still in operation and located at the exit from the gardens. Look for the three lintels’ Latin inscription MAGNAE DEAE NECESSITATI - To the Great Goddess of Necessity!

This is when Valentine Hasledine, steward to Tyrconnel begins his accounts for ye New Building upon the Hill. No architect’s payment exists in records so far examined.

Building materials

Stone mason William Grey worked repairing the Park wall. But from October 1749, he set to digging stone at Tyrconnel’s Hather pitts, Heydour quarry, 6 km distant (Haydor on the map above). He laid the foundations from February 1750. Then there was a delay. The problem with using lime mortar in lower temperatures is that of frost damage. As the temperature drops, the ability for it to set decreases and if water is held within the mortar it will be more prone to freezing, which can lead to damage and failures. True today, as reconstruction of the wall and gate leading to Belton's church awaits the Spring of 2022.

Hence, from May onwards, Grey burnt 99 chaldrons of limestone at your Lordship’s own kiln for lime mortar. Eighteenth century kilns were fired close to construction, due to quicklime’s caustic nature. Its temperature rises to over 100o C when splashed with water. The London chaldron, a unit of weight for coal and limestone, was standardised at 1.3 tons in 1665. So Grey heated 129 tons of limestone to 900o C producing ~70 tons of quicklime to bind bricks and stone.

Spittlegate brick arrived in May, either from brickworks at today’s Houghton Road Industrial Estate, or those in Brick Kiln Lane, now Springfield Road. A good red brick, Hasledine acquired 81,000, enough for 7 modern-day houses. Sixteen masons erected the brick arch from June 1750. Two months later 108 limestone loads arrived on site for the facings and quoins.

Bellmount, Bellmount, Belmont, Bellemount, Bell-Mount or Bell Mount?

Hasledine christened the structure Belmount Tower on 29th August 1750, at variance with Bellmount 1750 on the east elevation and other spellings above. Sam Smith, Master Builder, inserted the south pier staircase in 1751. The north pier remained a windowless void to the first-floor fire-hearth.

Expenses included scaffolding, slate tiles, an oak-framed iron cupola crowned with a yellow painted star, oak floors and white painted windows. Black-painted shutters may refer to the north-facing apertures. Iron work about the standard indicates a flagpole.

The cost was £803, today, £1.5 million using labour cost, the multiple of the average wage of workers employed to build the project!

Bellmount was a financial folly, as Tyrconnel died £2.5 million (RPI) in debt in 1754.

Viewshed analysis: the red area is the ‘bare earth’ (buildings excluded) viewshed from Bellmount (blue star) corrected for the Earth’s curvature. Not seen on the diagram is a small area of Norfolk viewable, Anmer on the Sandringham Estate at an elevation of 74 meters.

'Tis nothing more than a good family house

Caroline Lybbe Powys visited Belton in 1757. She qualifies her dismissive diary entry with her appreciation of Belton’s sash windows and the observation that,

from a temple in the garden called Belle Mount you may see seven counties at once

This prospect tower 138 m above sea level, has vistas over 7 modern counties. Cartographer, Thomas Moule 1837, espied Nottingham Castle, Kings Lynn and the Norfolk cliffs. The north-facing openings eyeballed Lincoln Cathedral’s two west spires demolished circa 1807.

Columns & Wings

Triumphal arches have flanking columns, absent from Bellmount. Wyatville sought to remedy this. His 1826 sketch, left, shows the attic base of an ionic column. Plinth recesses exist to nest these bases.

Illustrations hint at flanking walls, but there are no foundations. Did such wings manifest as yew hedges? Support for this comes from Philip Yorke’s topiary analogy of 1775,

Belmont I think may be well clipped of its two wings ...

Alternatively, trompe-l'œil may have formed Bellmount’s short-lived wings. Batty Langley, 1728, recommended simulated masonry painted on canvas as eyecatchers at the end of avenues.

Bellmount, based on the historical record and Wyatville’s proposed ionic columns, but excluding the uncertain wings.

Sophia Cust's painting Boathouse pond (now called the Fishing Lodge) c1840. Visible is the Tower's cupola. Note how the intention was an open landscape. Nowadays, the Tower is practically invisible from that location, because of trees.

The final section will cover Bellmount’s fires, military role and near destruction until resurrection in 1989.

My thanks to Janet Rowson for her vexillological research.

Eye-Catcher

Tyrconnel built his Tower to fly a flag higher than that of the Thorold’s neighbouring Syston Hall. Entries in the Belton accounts confirm the importance of flags, the Union Jack when mentioned,

Mrs A Lyon for hoisting flag, repairing flag, & cleaning stairway at Bellmount Tower, one year to 31st Dec 1921 £4 18s [£208 CPI]

A 1930s resident of the adjacent Bellmount cottages reported that the flag flew for the birth of an heir, e.g. David and Edward Cust. The Tower acted as a beacon for Royal events. At 10pm on Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, it fired celebratory signal rockets o’er the wide vale of Trent. For George VI’s jubilee, lighted torches blazed from the roof.

The only reference to the family use of the Tower is that for hunt refreshments. Bellmount Plantation on to Alma Wood were used for fox hunts.

Lastly how was the Tower used, what were the causes of two disastrous fires that nearly put paid to this edifice?

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