Spaunton Hall

Description

Many ancient castles in the district have been rased to the grounf, or present but a few small fragments; ... Spaunton castle, the residence of a family called Spaunton, and afterwards, it is said, of a a lord Carrington (Young, 1817)

At least three successive buildings have been uncovered by R. H. Hayes immediately to the N. of Manor House Farm (erected about I 700). The latest and main building, 58 ft. by 30 ft., of two rooms, seems to date from the late 13th to the 16th century. The hall contained two domestic ovens with circular hearths paved with sandstone slabs. A well-preserved partition-wall still standing 43 ft. high divided the hall from an industrial compartment, 30 ft. by 16 ft., containing a forge or blacksmith's type of hearth, and outside the W. wall there was an oven with a circular paved hearth and a flue leading into the room through the W. wall. There was much copper slag and some iron slag. The partition-wall had two post- slots for the cruck, 1ft. square and 4 ft. high; at the base of each slot is a large stone footing for the post. The building was roofed with limestone slabs, of which large numbers were recovered, but there were also green-glazed clay ridge-tiles. A cutting across the surviving NW. angle of the earthwork which surrounded the hall suggested that earlier, maybe Roman, constructions had been reused, and also revealed the bottom half of a kiln, 11 ft. by 9; ft. by 41 ft. high, thought to have been for corn-drying, or possibly for malting. (Med. Arch., 1963)

Comments

Young's 'castle' is almost certainly this C13 hall with little obvious evidence of fortification, although later building has altered the site. One on a number of high status houses on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors.