THE tower, technically a folly, was built about 1746 to celebrate the victory of the Duke of Cumberland at the battle of Culloden that year, a bloody culmination to the Jacobite rebellion which could have seen the return of a Roman Catholic monarch to the British throne.

“I just have great love for the tower, I think it’s a wonderful landmark for Richmond,” enthuses Di Newton, regional property manager for the Landmark Trust which owns, and has restored, Culloden Tower, which stands on a hill on the western edge of the town. “It represents Richmond to me.”

Di Newton has lived close to the hexagonal tower all her life. Linda Evans is a Southerner who came to Yorkshire just a few years ago, but now works a couple of days a week helping to run Culloden Tower for the holidaymakers who stay in it.

“I was quite impressed actually when I first saw it. It’s not at all creepy,” says the housekeeper, whose job is to look after the guests who generally stay for a couple of days or a whole week. “I do enjoy it here, but it can be quite dark in the winter.”

It was built by one of Richmond’s two 18th-Century Whig MPs, John Yorke. He was a great supporter of the Hanoverian king, George II, who he felt had brought great prosperity to the town.

Originally called the Cumberland Temple, Culloden Tower was essentially an ornament, a show of wealth for the man who built it, and a foil to the tower in the town’s much older castle which it overlooks.

“It’s been with the trust 30 years, the time that I started,” regional property manager Di Newton tells me. “It’ll be 31 years in August since I started as housekeeper there.”

The tower was originally just one of the buildings on an estate owned by the Yorke family. The centrepiece, Yorke House, was demolished in 1823 and in the 20th Century the tower fell into disrepair. Eventually, the trust bought and restored it.

“We rescue and restore buildings that basically nobody else wants. They’re all historical buildings,” says Di Newton. As a former housekeeper, she says the tower can present some interesting challenges to those who have to clean and manage it.

“There’s 98 steps in a spiral staircase from the top to the bottom. From the roof, you can see what was the old convent looking right round Richmond, rooftops, the castle the river – in a circle, it’s absolutely fantastic. On the top floor there’s a king-sized bedroom. The last furniture that we put in, we had to take the window out and winch the furniture up on ropes.”

Unfortunately, that spiral staircase can pose some difficulties to those who have problems with mobility, although the people who come and stay are from a wide range of ages and backgrounds.

“It’s right across the board, we have young couples, we have elderly couples, we have lots of families, we have writers, we have painters, we have the lot,” says Di.

Inside, the furniture is all chosen to fit the period of the tower. On the bottom floor, there is a twin bedroom. Next up, there is a kitchen complete with electric hobs and an oven. Above that is a tall, elegant living room with Rococo-Gothic plaster ceilings, a particular speciality of the architect, Daniel Garrett, who also designed the banqueting house at Gibside, another Landmark Trust building in County Durham.

On the top floor of Culloden Tower, the accommodation is topped out by a double bedroom. Guests can go further up the spiral staircase and out on to the roof of the building, with its fine views out across Richmond and the River Swale below.

Culloden Tower is grade II*-listed. The trust says it is an important landmark in the wider setting and landscape and was probably built on the site of a medieval pele tower, and may well have used the rubble from that tower.

Details of Culloden Tower are at landmarktrust.org.uk. In the peak season in August, a stay costs £858 for three nights. The tower sleeps four people.