Layer Marney Tower, constructed at Essex in…

Layer Marney Tower, constructed at Essex in the first half of the reign of Henry VIII, is in many ways the apotheosis of the Tudor gatehouse, and is the tallest example in Britain.

It is contemporaneous with East Barsham Manor and Sutton Place, Surrey, with which latter building it shares the rare combination of brick and terracotta construction.

The building is principally the creation of Henry 1st Lord Marney, who had died in 1523, and his son John, who has continued the building work but died just two years later, leaving no male heirs to continue the family line or the construction.

What has been completed was the main range measuring some three hundred feet long, the principal gatehouse that is about eighty feet tall, an array of outbuildings, and a new church.