Layer Marney Tower

Layer Marney Tower
Layer Marney Tower Gatehouse, the tallest Tudor gatehouse in Britain
Type	Prodigy House
Location	Layer Marney, Essex
Coordinates	51°49′21″N 0°47′48″E / 51.82250°N 0.79667°E / 51.82250; 0.79667
Built	c.1523
Architectural style(s)	Tudor
Website	layermarneytower.co.uk
Location of Layer Marney Tower in Essex

Layer Marney Tower is an incomplete early Tudor country house, with gardens and parkland, dating from about 1523, in Layer Marney, Essex, England, between Colchester and Maldon. The building was designated Grade I listed in 1952.

The large gatehouse tower is much the most striking element to be completed and to survive.

Constructed in the first half of the reign of Henry VIII, Layer Marney Tower is in many ways the apotheosis of the Tudor gatehouse, and is the tallest example in Britain. It is contemporaneous with East Barsham Manor in Norfolk and Sutton Place, Surrey, with which latter building it shares the rare combination of brick and terracotta construction.^[1] The building is principally the creation of Henry 1st Lord Marney, who died in 1523, and his son John, who continued the building work but died just two years later, leaving no male heirs to continue the family line or the construction. What was completed was the main range measuring some 300 feet (91 m) long, the principal gatehouse that is about 80 feet (24 m) tall, an array of outbuildings, and a new church.