Note NN — THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE;
Reading edition
It is so called to this day, and is thus described by Dr. Whitaker. "Rylstone Fell yet exhibits a monument of the old warfare between the Nortons and Cliffords. On a point of very high ground, commanding an immense prospect, and protected by two deep ravines, are the remains of a square tower, expressly said by Dodsworth to have been built by Richard Norton. The walls are of strong grout-work, about four feet thick. It seems to have been three stories high. Breaches have been industriously made in all the sides, almost to the ground, to render it untenable.
"But Norton Tower was probably a sort of pleasure-house in summer, as there are, adjoining to it, several large mounds, (two of them are pretty entire,) of which no other account can be given than that they were butts for large companies of archers.
"The place is savagely wild, and admirably adapted to the uses of a watch-tower."—W. W. 1815. (See note VII. p. 201.)—Ed.
The remains of Norton Tower are not in the highest point of the Rylstone Fells, but on one of the western ridges: and there are now only four bare roofless rectangular walls. It was originally both a watch-tower and a hunting-tower. Looking towards Malham to the north and north-west, the view is exactly as described in the poem.—Ed.