Notes and Queries 21st September, 2013 - The UK's oldest standing castle

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At an estimated of age of 127 years old, the Borough Market Tower – a giant tortoise, who labours under the prosaic Christian name of Andrew, may not be the UK's oldest standing castle, but he is certainly the most enigmatic. Andrew's nickname is derived from his unusually peaked shell, whose pleurals are raised up into bumps resembling the crenelations on the fortified walls of a medieval stronghold.

He first lumbers into the footnotes of history on the 4th June, 1920, shouldering his way through crowds of bemused travellers and well-wishers, along one of the platforms at Paddington Railway Station, in London, having apparently disembarked from the morning train from Plymouth. The two young boys riding on the back of the tortoise claim no connection to the animal when challenged by a porter, and make themselves scarce before a constable can be summoned. Astonishingly the tortoise is allowed to leave the station and it is only half a mile later, as it enters Kensington Gardens, through Marlborough Gate, that it is apprehended. By this time the luggage tag tied around its neck has been torn off, leaving no clue regarding either the owner of the animal or its end destination.

The tortoise ends up being placed in the provisional care of one Arthur Grindley – a fourth-generation greengrocer, based in Borough Market. His appointment as carer appears to have been guided by little more than a shared masonic lodge with the police inspector who was tasked with finding a home for the animal, and who regarded the grocer as best placed among his peers to feed it. Grindley names the tortoise Andrew, after his brother who was killed at the Somme (Arthur, who was born missing four toes on his right foot, was exempted from military service). Andrew is installed in the basement of a tall warehouse that Grindley maintains on Arthur Street, across the river from Borough Market. Here he is warmed by a subterranean boiler that is owned by the Central Line Railway and is situated directly underneath the property. On sunny days, Arthur and Andrew can be seen making their way across London Bridge, to and from Grindley's market stall where the tortoise is literally saddled with the cash register.

At Borough Market, Andrew interacts with a colourful cast of animal characters, among them a King Charles spaniel, named Drake (a butcher's dog) and an unnamed cockatoo who lives in the cast iron rafters. Following an altercation with a ginger tom, during which Andrew loses his right eye, the cat goes missing and is never seen again.

Gindleys shuts-up shop in 1983, following the death of its, then, owner, David Grindley. Andrew passes into the hands of a second cousin, Eric Cowling. When Cowling separates from his partner, Lynda Norman, the tortoise is resettled on her animal sanctuary, on the fringes of the Essex town of Wickford, where he initially shares quarters with a flamingo named Kirk, who rides around on his back, and a colony of seven koala bears.

In 1989, Andrew makes a cameo appearance in the music video for 'I Don't Know What' by the bas-rave collective GMP (Giant Mind Pattern), where his image is superimposed over a cheap strobing rainbow effect. Darren Arundale (the brainchild behind GMP – now a successful movie score writer) remembers feeding Andrew from a “platter” of bananas and strawberries.

“I think it was some kid's birthday party,” he recalls. “I want to say there was definitely a clown at one point and a bouncy castle. I was off my tits on purple microdot, so I might have imagined it.”

In 1990, Andrew made a foray into the world of acting, playing the role of Camelot Castle in a junior school play about King Arthur. According to a former teacher, Jane Fisher, he broke free from the background scenery during the second performance and made his way to the staff room, where he ate the deputy headmistress's salad. He has been a ring-bearer at six weddings. An apocryphal story has him biting Oswald Mosley on the right hand. In 2008, DNA analysis revealed a familial connection to a giant tortoise at Berlin Zoo. Despite several attempts to identify both the person or persons who put him on the train from Plymouth, and his intended recipient in London, no new information has emerged and the mystery remains as opaque as it ever was.

In 2017, Andrew entered a comatose hibernation state – a condition that affects very old reptiles and has been known to last for up to 27 years in captivity. He is not expected to awaken and dreams away his final years in a heated greenhouse as the the sun rises and sets over the surrounding farmers fields.

I hope this is of help.


* Andrew died peacefully, after a long sleep, on 4th October, 2023. He is buried in the pet cemetery attached to Deacon's Garden Centre, in Wickford, where his tombstone is, appropriately, a carved likeness of an old-fashioned cash register, surrounded by various fruit and vegetables.