Crowdown

Crowdown is an estate cottage located on the Grittleton estate, built around 1840 by J. Thomson for Joseph Neeld. The cottage features rubble stone construction with squared ashlar blocks on the south front and has a stone slate eaves roof. It is designed in 1½ storeys.

The south front is notable for its exceptionally tall and thin five-stage ashlar octagonal tower at the southwest corner, which includes a moulded plinth and dripcourses with uncarved bosses at the angles. The top stage of the tower has arcading with column shafts and windows on the cardinal faces, while the other sides are blank, topped with a corbelled parapet. The house is arranged in a T-plan, with the tower at the southwest angle of the west wing, which has a hipped roof and a two-shaft rear stack.

The front of the cottage features a single light in an eaves-breaking dormer gable above a door set in a depressed-arched surround, which is located within a broad ashlar porch between the tower and the gabled south end of the main range. There is a stepped parapet with a shield above the moulded depressed-arched entry, and stone seats are incorporated within. The south end of the main range includes a ground-floor three-light canted ashlar bay with a stone roof and a single light on the first floor.

The east side has two windows and a four-shaft ridge stack, with rubble stone walls and plain mullion windows; the upper windows are under eaves-breaking dormers. A door is located at the right end in a gabled stone porch. The tower, which is similar to but taller than the one at Fosse Lodge, is said to have served as either an observation tower for following the hunt or a telegraph tower.