34 and 36 Staups Lane

This is a wool merchant's house, dated 1684 and built for John Crowther. It is constructed of coursed rubble stone with ashlar dressings and has stone slate roofs with ashlar coped gables and kneelers. Quoins and a continuous ground-floor band feature above the windows.

The main west front has three gables, with a doorway positioned off-centre and approached by four curved steps. The wooden panelled door is set within a round-headed ashlar surround, topped with a stone plaque originally inscribed "IC 1684". To the left of the doorway is a single six-light deeply-chamfered cross-mullion window, and to the right are two similar eight-light cross-mullion windows, both with slightly thicker central mullions. Above the doorway is a three-light mullion window within a deeply chamfered surround, flanked by single cross-mullion windows with five lights below and three lights above, plus a single similar window to the right, all within deeply chamfered surrounds with hood-moulds. The left return has a rebuilt wall where a fourth gabled wing has been demolished. The right return shows a blocked two-light cross casement window in a deeply chamfered surround with a hood-mould and a former five-light mullion window, above a similar two-light window. The rear of the house has later extensions and includes a single five-light mullion window.

The interior follows a lobby entry plan. A fine late-seventeenth century staircase features bulbous turned balusters and square newels with ball finials. The central room contains a large moulded ashlar fire surround, reputedly taken from nearby Shibden Hall, while the north room has a four-centred-arched moulded ashlar fire surround with flanking former cupboards. Chamfered beams are present, along with seventeenth century plank doors and some eighteenth century panel doors. There are fragments of original panelling and cupboards in some rooms, as well as a partly exposed seventeenth century roof structure.