Water Tower, Kenilworth Castle

1 The Water Tower at Kenilworth Castle, built in perhaps the early 14th century by Thomas of Lancaster. The Queen’s Chamber was situated on the top floor, and an associated culvert is shown on maps running from here to North of Mortimer’s Tower. It has been suggested that the culvert is itself an earlier feature, and it may have been used to power a mill in the area between Mortimer’s Tower and the Water Tower. The culvert is shown on a plan of 1814 labelled a ‘vaulted passage to Water Tower’. It is almost 80m in length and high enough to stand in (near Mortimer’s Tower).
2 There are two garderobe shafts in the Water Tower. The ground floor in is located west of the first floor one, and lies at the end of a narrow, roofed corridor; the latter is open to the sky.Only 19th and 20th century material was recovered from the fill of the ground floor garderobe shaft when it was proposed to open it to the public (associated with its use for a Moule’s Earth Closet). Mason’s marks were also recorded from the shaft, adding to the existing corpus.