‘A satirical name for any building which overtops those around it, more usually applied to a prison’ (Halliwell, 1847–78).
a. 1687. Cotton, Voy. Irel., III. Poems (1689), 197. A Castle there stood … Upon such a steep Rock … ’tis prettiest Cob-castle e’er I beheld.
[Cf. Cob-hall in the following:
1877. N. W. Linc. Gloss., Cob-Hall, a small house standing in … the Market-place 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.]
