The Dower House

The Dower House, now a hotel, dates from the mid-18th century and features 20th-century additions. It is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with a pantile roof, which has two eaves courses of stone. The building stands three storeys tall, although the top storey is false, and has seven first-floor windows. Notable architectural features include rusticated quoins, a limestone plinth, and a central six-panel door with a fanlight set within a rubbed-brick round arch that has a keystone. The flanking and first-floor windows are sashes with glazing bars, framed in flush wood architraves, with projecting sills and rubbed brick flat arches that also have keystones. The second floor contains five blind windows set in a tall parapet wall that conceals three roof gables. The top five courses of the parapet, above the blind windows, were rebuilt in the mid-20th century and feature moulded limestone coping. There are brick stacks at the rear, on both the left and right sides. The original rear wall is obscured by an additional wing that was added for hotel accommodation. The left return has one inserted sash window with glazing bars on the ground floor to the right, while the right return shows random fenestration with 20th-century frames. Inside, there is a fine 18th-century staircase opposite the entrance, featuring turned balusters and newels, along with a ramped handrail. The building served as the Dower house for the Slingsby family of Knaresborough and Scriven and underwent significant extensions in the 1970s and 1980s, during which the stable block was also converted for hotel use.