Crawley Tower With Cottage Inside

Crawley Tower, dating from the early 14th century, features a cottage built inside it during the 18th century when the ruins were modified to serve as an eyecatcher on the Shawdon Estate. The structure is made of massive squared stone, while the cottage is constructed from rubble with a Welsh slate roof. It has a rectangular plan measuring 15.2 by 11.2 metres externally, and wall toothings indicate a former structure to the northeast. The L-plan cottage is built against the interior of the south and west walls.

The south elevation displays a renewed door in an 18th-century opening, along with a small casement window in a modified loop to the left. There is a first-floor casement in a blocked doorway of uncertain date, and two original windows at higher levels, each featuring two chamfered lancet lights, although the mullions are now missing. The elevation is topped with an irregular stepped 18th-century parapet. The west elevation shows the remains of another early two-light window above two later windows, with an 18th-century embattled parapet.

On the north elevation, the two-storey pent-roofed cottage inside the tower includes various casement and sash windows. Above the cottage roof, in the south wall, there is a segmental rear arch with window seats, leading to an upper two-light window. The remaining parts of the tower's east and north walls have 18th-century crowstepped coping. The cottage also features a single-storey pent part on the exterior of the north tower wall, along with an adjacent outbuilding.

The interior of the cottage was not seen, but the tower walls are 2.6 metres thick, except on the north side where there was likely a mural stair. A licence to crenellate was granted in 1343, although the architectural features likely predate this. Significant earthworks to the north suggest that the tower was part of a strongly fortified complex. The adjacent cottages are not of special interest.