Whitton Tower

Whitton Tower is a tower house and attached house, originally built as a ‘vicar's pele’ and later serving as the rectory, now divided into two units. The core of the building dates to the 14th century, with the attached house built in the mid-19th century. The tower is constructed of squared stone, while the house is ashlar, with Welsh and Lakeland slate roofs. The plan is irregular, and the 19th-century house is in a Tudor style.

The front facing the road is entirely 19th century in appearance, featuring two storeys and four bays. It has a castellated porch in the third bay. The windows are mullioned and mullion-and-transom style, with hoodmoulds over the ground-floor windows and floating cornices above the first-floor windows. The roofs are complex and irregular, with elaborate kneelers, shaped gables, and large, corniced end stacks.

Attached to the rear is a four-storey tower with a chamfered plinth. It has two small slit windows with chamfered surrounds illuminating the staircase. A 19th-century mullion-and-transom bay window with a castellated top is also present. A parapet and corner turrets are 19th-century additions. On the rear of the tower is a shield displaying the arms of the Umfravilles.

The tower's interior walls are approximately 8 feet thick. The basement contains a pointed tunnel vault, accessed by a doorway with a shouldered lintel, and a fine ashlar well in the floor. The ground floor also has a high, pointed tunnel vault, divided into two rooms by a later wall. An entrance passage with a tunnel vault leads from the ground floor; its inner and outer doorways have pointed arches and continuous chamfers. The outer doorway is now blocked. A third door with a shouldered lintel leads from this passage to the base of the stone newel stair. A further door, also with a shouldered lintel, leads directly from the staircase into the main vaulted room. Similar original doorways provide access from the stairs on the upper floors.

The attached house originally had a cantilevered staircase with slender turned balusters. The hall features four pointed stone arches, and there are several stone Gothic fireplaces throughout.