Twizel has been altered over the centuries by its many owners, and all have been determined to retain the core of historic masonry which defined it as an ‘ancient seat’. This core was a two-storey hall house, probably built by the Redel family, lords of Tillmouth who purchased the Twizel estate in 1272. William Redel was constable of Norham and High Sherriff of Northumberland and possibly the subject of the effigy in Norham Church. Masonry from this phase can be seen near the base of the north wall. In the 15th century the house passed to the Herons of Ford, who added a tower on the site of the current west wing and a large internal kitchen fireplace, as well as fortifying it with a barmkin (defensible enclosure). Following damage in Perkin Warbeck’s rebellion of 1496 Twizel remained partly ruined.
Elizabethan
By 1537 Twizel was owned by the Selby family. In 1561 it was still described as ‘one part or a quarter’ of a ‘tower, or pele… of auncyent time decayed and cast downe’ but soon afterwards John and Margaret Selby began to restore it. John Selby was Gentleman Porter in the Berwick garrison and by 1585 he was living regularly at Twizel during the summer months. We know little about the house itself at this time but a later document (Berwick Record Office : NRO 1216/F.4) shows that it had battlements and ‘pinion gables’ and a separate ‘little house’ or privy.
Mid-18th century
By the 1760s ownership had passed to Francis Blake (later Sir Francis Blake) who updated his ‘castle’ by demolishing the tower, clothing the building with a ‘Gothick’ masonry skin and adding turreted wings linked by a corridor giving separate access to the hall and chambers. Contemporary drawings of the scheme survive in the Northumberland archives (ZBU 5/6/32-4). Decorative quatrefoils from this phase can be seen on the east and west faces of the current building and the line of the corridor roof can also be seen. The design, however, was severely flawed; the corridor would have been very low and narrow and difficult to waterproof, the medieval stairs were inconvenient and the house was too small for the needs of an 18th-century baronet.
