The Eleanor Bowes Hospital

The Eleanor Bowes Hospital is a Grade II* almshouse founded in 1607 by Eleanor Bowes for three widows. The building incorporates remains of a 12th-century chapel dedicated to St Edmund the King.

Constructed from uncoursed rubble stone with ashlar buttresses, the single-storey structure features a stone slate roof. The exterior is divided into three bays by 12th-century ashlar buttresses, with raised and coped gables. The south side includes a 17th-century doorway, a modern doorway, and 19th-century windows. The east gable-end has a blocked two-light 14th-century window with ogee tracery above its arched head, and a deep string course with circular medallions just above sill level. The west gable, rebuilt in 1607, has an externally projecting ridge stack that features a panel within a moulded frame, displaying the arms of Bowes impaling Musgrave. The kneelers supporting the gable coping stones are shaped and carved with coats of arms, Bowes to the north and Musgrave to the south. This gable end also has two windows flanking the chimney; the north window is blocked and set higher than the south window, which has a sash divided into very small panes. A tall boundary wall extends south from the gable, featuring a moulded cornice and a simple Tudor-arched doorway.

Inside, the west wall showcases an early 17th-century fireplace with a modelled plaster frieze above it. The east wall has a similar frieze in two sections, each displaying a coat of arms supported by cupids, believed to represent the Bowes and Musgrave families.