[1] West Tanfield occupied a strategic crossing point on the north bank of the River Ure, and Sir John Marmion and later his daughter-in-law Maud were given licences by the Crown to crenellate the manor house there in 1314 and 1348 respectively.

[2] When the antiquary John Leland visited the site in the mid-16th century, he described how "the castelle of Tanfeld, or rather as it is nowe, a meane manor Place, stondith hard on the ripe of Ure, wher I saw no notable building but a fair toured Gateway and a Haule of squarid stone.

[5] By 1786, the rest of the manor except for the gatehouse had been destroyed; Grose recorded a local tradition stating that Thomas Cecil and Sir Christopher Wandesford had used the stone in the construction of Snape Castle and Kirklington Hall respectively in the late 16th century.

[7] The tower is three storeys high, 34 by 31 feet (10.4 by 9.4 m) across and built from magnesian limestone; it was raised in height at some point after its original construction.

[4] The first floor has a fireplace and an ornate oriel window, added after the original construction, looking east; Pevsner considered this "must be Elizabethan at the earliest.