Stone Building Approximately 25 Metres South Of Church House

This is an outbuilding, likely part of a former house, dating probably to the 13th century, with elements from the 12th century, including a reset arch. Later alterations include the insertion of a south gable end and replacement or insertion of a first floor. The roof was removed around 1970. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar and coursed rubble, with a south gable end of red brick. It is rectangular, consisting of a single room, roughly 6 metres north-south and 4 metres east-west. It has two storeys.

The west side features two first-floor openings. A round-headed, chamfered arch with a plain hoodmould is on the left, with a section of dripcourse above. There is a blocked square-headed opening above a right-side window, and a smaller window to the right; both windows are beneath a fragmentary wall plate. The east side has a wall that is seriously damaged, with the outer face collapsed to the left. A board door is inserted to the right of centre on the ground floor. The first floor has a central door with brick blocking below, flanked by a window to the right and a smaller window to the left. The north gable end, partially obscured during a resurvey, has a small, blocked, chamfered, square-headed ground-floor opening to the right, and a moulded string course at first-floor level. The inserted south gable end obscures the ground floor but has a small, blocked, square-headed opening and a fragmentary opening to the head of the gable on the first floor. The eaves and gable verges are partly ruinous.

Inside, the north side has a pair of blocked openings, seemingly doors, beneath oak lintels. There is a wide blocked opening with ashlar jambs to the first floor. An ashlar surround frames a blocked opening in the west wall. The building stands beside the former east bank of the River Don, which was navigable in the Middle Ages. It was marked as a “Ware House” on an Ordnance Survey map. It is likely part of a former domestic complex, potentially built by John le Franceys, the rector of Adlingfleet, who demolished Whitgift Church in the mid-13th century and built a chamber, possibly for his own use, using stones from the church. This origin may explain the 12th-century doorway.

This is a remarkable survival, one of Humberside’s few standing medieval secular buildings and the only one in the low-lying Marshland region of the lower Trent and Ouse valleys. It suffered from significant neglect and was partly ruinous with an immediate risk of further collapse at the time of resurvey in April 1987. Masonry removed from the building was used to construct a wall extending from the south-east corner eastwards to the side of Garthorpe Road.