Post Medieval Tower 300m SW of Manor House, Claverdon

1 An isolated rectangular tower of three storeys said to have been the NW of four angle towers of the great house begun by Thomas Spencer (d1630). There are no traces of this house above ground and no indications of where the tower joined with the ranges of the house. The house was never completed, as a survey of 1650 indicates that part of the site was occupied by a large timber house which even then was ruinous (PRN 6283). A moulded string-course at second floor level passes right around the tower, while a lower string-course appears only on the NW and SW sides. The walls of the tower are mostly of local stone, but the lowest five or six courses in the NE and SE are of good ashlar. In the S half of the SE side is a doorway flanked by two projecting piers. The face of the left pier has footings for the low walls which connected with a house of two stories. The roof and parapets of the tower are modern.
2 It is doubtful if any other structure, apart from low walls, was intended to abut on the tower. The string courses around the building show the walls to have been exterior walls. A garden area consists of areas levelled out of earlier ridge and furrow and enclosed by flat-topped banks.
4 Drawing by H Beighton.
5 Early C17 probably, and of a type very rare in the Midlands; for this is a tower house in the N English sense. The windows are mostly on one side.
6 Listed Building description.
7 Newpaper cutting about the building before its possible sale.
8 The stone building was probably built by Thomas Spencer soon after 1590 and the part which survives is likely one of the towers of the original building. This was probably a seemi-fortified house, and Dugdale’s map of Barlichway Hundred shows a square building with towers at each corner.