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Paterchurch is first mentioned in 1289. The medieval tower, like nearby
eighteenth and nineteenth century fortifications, may have served as a lookout
post. The rooms have fireplaces, and a connecting spiral staircase.
By the seventeenth century, additional domestic and farm buildings stood close
by. In 1698, goods and livestock included furniture, kitchen equipment, cows,
oxen, horses, lambs, sheep, pigs, geese, ducks, poultry, wheat, barley, oats and
... a violin. The tower now lies within the Dockyard wall, whose builders in
1844 unearthed numerous skeletons - the isolated settlement had its own
cemetery, whose last recorded burial is that of Roger Adams, in 1731.
Paterchurch Tower was the centre of an estate said to stretch from Pennar Point
to Cosheston. This changed hands in 1422 when Ellen de Paterchurch married John
Adams.
Before the Dockyard was thought of, various sales and exchanges took place
between the principal local landowners - the Adams, Owen and Meyrick families.
These left the Meyricks in control of most of the land on which the Dockyard and
new town were to develop.
By 1802 the Paterchurch buildings were ruins. Although the Adams family had
moved to Holyland near Pembroke, they maintained links with Pater. General
Adams, in 1833, recommended that the Defensible Barracks be built. In 1862, a
Miss Adams married Captain Loring, Captain Superintendent of the Dockyard.
(Sources:
Charles 723; Tiffany; Mason 18-19, 21, 51-4, 70-1) |
