Smokehouse, Craster

Smokehouse, mid-C19, possibly part converted from an existing building.

MATERIALS: locally quarried whin stone with roughly cut dressings in the same stone; pantile roof covering; timber slats vents.

PLAN: rectangular, divided internally into two double and one triple smoke rooms with a fuel store to the left end.

EXTERIOR: stone-built full-height building beneath pitched roofs of pantiles with smoke vents. The elevation facing the main road is of at least two phases: the right end comprises a tall, narrow building with a rubble plinth, a steeply-pitched roof and rough quoins to both ends. It has a pair of upper small window openings with crude stone lintels and sills and simple timber frames; one window is timber slatted and the other has a fixed upper pane and a louvered lower pane. There is a single timber smoke vent to either pitch with timber slats to the front. The right return is blind with reverse crow stepped gable or skew stones, and the left return also has skew stones. Attached to the left gable there is a slightly set back later addition with a shallower pitched roof and a full-length, upstanding timber slatted ridge vent; the latter has a pair of openings with timber boarded fronts. This part of the building appears to be secondary and given the difference in stonework between the lower and upper parts, the building may have been raised upon an existing stone yard enclosure wall. The rear elevation is obscured by later ranges.

INTERIOR: within the later rear ranges, the lower part of the rear wall of the smokehouse is visible, pierced by several openings, all with replaced timber doors. The doors open into one triple and two double smoke rooms, with smoke blackened interiors. The timber smoking racks known locally as 'lungs' onto which the herring are hung during the smoking process are retained. The left smoke room is now used as a fuel store.