Witton Tower, Witton-le-Wear

Description

House and possible chapel. Medieval with additions and alterations in C17, C18 and C19. Thin courses of sandstone rubble, pink in places, with ashlar dressings and quoins; plinth. Roofs of stone flags and Welsh slate with stone and brick chimneys. Irregular plan. 3-storey, one-bay tower with 2-storey, 2-bay left wing and 3-storey, 3-bay right wing; 2-storey, one-bay link at left to so-called chapel breaking forward. Tudor-arched surround to door at right of tower in c.1900 glazed porch; windows of varying types and sizes, those in tower with stone-mullioned flat-Tudor-headed lights, those at left of tower cross-type on ground floor, 16-pane sash and Y-glazing barred sash above, those in right wing sashes with glazing bars in Tudor-arched surrounds; most have drip or label moulds; right wing has strings on upper floors interrupted by windows. Left link to chapel has 2-light stone-mullioned ground-floor window; upper window obscured by ivy. 'Chapel' has 3-light window under 2-centred-arched drip mould with round stops; small lancet above and belfry in front gable peak. Tower has high coped parapet on string, and central stone chimney stack with tapered yellow pots; brick stacks at right and at outer ends of wings. (Listed Building Report)

Witton Tower is an extensive mansion which includes a Medieval tower house, a chapel and an intermediate dwelling. Before the later 19th century is was better known as Witton Tower. There are a number of modern extensions. The house, for some years a hotel, was extensively remodelled in the later 1990s and again in 2005/6, when it and the attached farm building group were being converted into a series of separate dwelling units. The house is quite large, and made up of a number of components. In the centre is the tower itself, a north-south block, roughly twice as long as it is wide; its southern half is three storeys high and the northern half rises further a half-storey. Projecting eastward from this block, but set back a little northwards, is the three-bay three-storey east wing, with a block behind infilling the space between it and a parallel wing (the north-east wing). On the opposite (west) side of the centre block, similarly set back, is the two-storey two-bay west wing, continued by the lower but still two-storeyed L-plan chapel wing (now outbuildings) which angles (at rather less than a right angle) to the south. The chapel appears to be the earliest part of the structure, and contains in its south gable end a Norman window - a narrow, round-headed aperture of C12 date, situated above a restored Early English window. However, there is the possibility that the chapel is later and is a gothic C18th invention, using possibly the material from a chapel from Witton Castle which was demolished sometime in the 18th century. The remains of C16 hood-moulds and mullions may be seen in the tower and dwelling-house. The roofs are of stone flags and Welsh slate, with stone and brick chimneys. (Keys to the Past)