Craster Tower, Craster. Photo by Peter Ryder.

(NU 25101958) Tower, Craster Tower. (1)

A list of 1460 (authorities (3) and (4) give the date as 1415) mentions a tower at Craster, the property of Edmund Craster. (2)

Craster Tower now forms part of a modern building. Rectangular in plan with external measurements of 35ft north-south by 29ft 2 ins east-west. The entrance is in the east wall, and is now approached from the offices in the hall. There is an outer doorway and an inner one which opens into a vaulted basement. In the passage between these doors, on the left on entering, is the door of the wheel stair that went up in the wall, here 6ft 5ins thick, near the south east angle of the tower. None of the steps are visible although it is believed that they exist behind the blocking. The three doors mentioned are all of late 14th century character with slightly pointed heads formed out of two stones. The basement is vaulted and measures 27ft 7ins x 16ft 5ins. It contains the remains of two slit windows and a blocked fireplace. The sash windows in the west wall of the first and second floors, and the battlements of the tower are modern. (4)

At the time of investigation the occupants of Craster Tower were not available and the interior was not inspected. The exterior is devoid of architecture save in the south west wall where the windows in the first and second floors are modern. The walls are built of squared ashlar and are in a good state of preservation. (5)

Condition unchanged. (6)

Craster Tower, Grade II* listed building.
Country house incorporating a medieval tower. Tower probably 14th century. House 1769, east wing 19th century. L-plan with tower at junction of 1769 south block and east wing. Tower retains barrel vaulted basements. (7)

Craster Tower. Built before 1415, owned by Edmund Craster. (8)

The tower is a rectangular structure, 10.7m by 8.9m externally, its longer axis north-south. The walls are externally of squared ashlar, around 2m thick at basement level. Later buildings adjoin the south and east faces of the tower and an embattled screen wall, probably of late 18th century date, almost the full height of the tower, extends northwards from close to the west end of the north wall. The west front shows a chamfered plinth, tripartite Gothick windows to first and second floors and a moulded string below the embattled parapet. The only medieval opening is an apparent blocked loop to the south of the first floor window. On the north there is even less detail, simply a 20th century basement window, the string and the parapet.
Internally, the tower has a basement 6.9m by 4.9m with a segmental barrel vault, entered by a lobby at the south end of the east wall. The lobby has an outer doorway with a two-centred arch carrying a simple broad chamfer and a doorway of similar form, unchamfered, into the basement. Whilst on the south side is a doorway with a segmental-pointed head, again chamfered, opening into a newel stair well. The stair itself has been removed and the well capped off by a domical brick vault at around first floor level, probably when a doorway (now
blocked) was cut through its south side. The basement has a plain fireplace on the east, a late insertion (the external face of the wall, visible from within the adjacent building, shows a slightly
projecting stack of rubble masonry). In the centre of the north wall is the modern window, set in the splayed recess of an earlier opening and flanked by two small wall cupboards, the eastern rebated for a door; at the south end is a similar recess, presumably housing a loop or window, now blocked by the adjacent building. The upper floors of the tower are said to display no pre-18th century features.
The wing on the east side of the tower, although extensively remodelled in the 19th century, incorporates older fabric. No dateable features survive from the earlier phase (said to be Tudor). Walling 1.15m thick and one heavy square ceiling beam suggest a 16th century or earlier date.
In 1769 what was in effect a new house was built on to the south side of the tower, a block four bays deep by five wide, facing south. No architect is recorded but the style is very similar to that of some houses by William Newton. The upper floors of the tower were probably remodelled at the same time, in a Gothick rather than a Classical style and the present parapet built. (9)

Photographic survey by RCHME between January and March 1998. (10)

Craster Tower is thought to have been designed by William Newton and was added to the south side of the tower in 1769. (11)

Listed by Cathcart King and Dodds. (12a,b)