In 1871 John Atkinson Wilson gave a lecture in the town hall on “Alnwick and the changes it has undergone since the latter part of the 18th century”. He described the Dun Cow.
“Nearly on the site of the present road leading to the Castle Gardens, was Cutler’s, or Jackson’s Lane, the ancient road to Denwick, for which the present road was substituted in 1768. … Between Cutler’s Lane and Bondgate Tower stood an old tavern called the Dun Cow, and another house occupied by Peggy McDonald, blocked up the existing footway on the north side – the carriage road being the only passage through the Tower, which was long used as a prison, the cells of which were dark and gloomy, and swarming with rats”.