Crake Trees

Description

House of C14 origin surrounded by associated earthworks. The site was the subject of a detailed architectural and archaeological survey by English Heritage in 1999-2000. Only the vaulted ground floor of the solar wing now survives of C14 tower house. A timber-framed chapel with a piscina was attached to the outside of the wing, which itself stood at the end of a timber-framed hall. In late C16 or early C17, the medieval hall and its service block were demolished and replaced in stone by a new single storey hall range with a two storey solar tower. Further alterations occurred subsequently, but the house was abandoned by 1881. Associated earthworks include a fishpond and a number of rectilinear fields and enclosures. (PastScape)

Crake Trees, house, about 1,000 yards N.W. of the church, is of two storeys; the walls are of rubble and the roofs that survive are slate-covered. It is said to have belonged to the family of Lancaster and seems to have been built late in the 14th or early in the 15th century. It was of the local mediæval type, with a single-storeyed hall-block and wings at the N. and S. ends; the S. wing was of the semifortified type and probably carried up as a tower. The main block was remodelled at various times and an upper storey added; the house has long been abandoned and is now roofless and ruined, except the S. wing which has been much reduced in height and is covered with a modern roof. The E. front has 16th or 17th-century windows on both floors, some of the upper ones lacking their mullions; the porch is an addition of the same age and within it is a doorway with a triangular arch in a square head. N. of the porch is a 15th or early 16th-century window with an ogee finialed head cut on the lintel and a rampant leopard carved on the tympanum. The W. side and N. end retain some 16th or 17th-century windows. The S. wing has a re-set 14th-century window-head of one trefoiled ogee light in the S. wall; in the W. wall is a square-headed window; adjoining the wing on this side is a projection enclosing a spiral staircase. The ground floor of the S. wing has an elliptical barrel-vault and a cross-wall. It is entered from the hall-block by a late 14th or early 15th-century doorway with chamfered jambs and shouldered head. The main block and the N. wing retain some 16th and 17th-century fireplaces, one having a triangular arch in a square head. At the N.W. angle of the N. wing is a spiral staircase.
Condition—Ruined. (RCHME 1936)