cob-castlen.
‘A satirical name for any building which overtops those around it, more usually applied to a prison’ (Halliwell 1847–78).Cf. Cob-hall in the following:
1877 E. Peacock Gloss. Words Manley & Corringham, Lincs. Cob-Hall, a small house standing in..the Marketplace at Kirton-in-Lindsey. There is some reason for believing it to stand on the site of the prison of the Lord of the Manor.
ΚΠ
a1687 Cotton Voy. Ireland iii, in Poems (1689) 197 A Castle there stood..Upon such a steep Rock..'tis prettiest Cob-castle e'er I beheld.
Draft additions September 2016
† A children's throwing game apparently played with nuts or cherry stones (see quot. a1672, and cf. cob-nut n. 2). Also: (the name of) the object used as a target in the game. Obsolete. [The Middle French original of the passage translated in quot. 1603 uses cornichon va devant (a1588 or earlier), lit. ‘pickle goes in front’, perhaps denoting a race in which participants compete to pick up a number of objects while running.]
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1603 J. Florio tr. M. de Montaigne Ess. iii. xiii. 660 To see him [sc. Scipio] carelesly to dally and childishly to trifle, in gathering and chusing of cockle-shells, and play at cob-castle alongst the sea-shore with his friend Lælius.
a1672 F. Willughby Bk. of Games (2003) 188 They lay 3 nuts or cherrie stones close togather in a triangle, and another in the middle upon them. This they call a Cob-Castle, and setting it a prettie distance of, they throw a nut at it. If hee that throws a nut, or boules a little bullet at it, can knock it downe, hee wins the 4 nuts that made the Cobcastle. But if hee misses, the other that ownes the Cobcastle has as manie nuts as are thrown.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1891; most recently modified version published online September 2020).
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n.1603