With comedian and active conservationist, Griff Rhys Jones, at the helm, viewers will be asked to vote for and then help save one of 30 of our most endangered buildings.  | | The chimmney at Brackenhill Tower. |
Brackenhill Tower
Brackenhill Tower at Longtown near Carlisle is one of the 30 buildings. It's an exceptional example of a fortified Border tower house. Experts say that what makes it even rarer is that it's a Scottish-style tower sitting on English soil and is pretty much intact - even if it is in a precarious position. With five feet thick walls of Cumbrian sandstone and 19th Century additions, it now sits rather forlornly among prefab buildings on a dairy farm. Restoration of the tower is an opportunity to highlight the fascinating history of these cattle thieves and mercenaries who terrorised the border country after years of bloody conflict left it in a state of lawlessness. Brackenhill tower is a type of building known as a 'pele tower'. This is a small defensive building about 10m x 15m and of two or three floors height. The ground floor of a pele would be used for the storage of goods and livestock whilst the upper floors were the living accomodations. During the many border conflicts, the pele towers were a place of refuge for when the Reivers were abroad. The tower in (much) more detail » | 
