NY 919729/Habitable/Private House

Ranulf de Haughton is thought to have erected the lowest storey of this complex building C13. Good original doorway. In the late C14 the original house was enlarged and fortified with towers and battlements, and two-light pointed windows. It is now in the form of an oblong tower-house with angle towers and a fifth tower in the middle of the south front. It was first effered to as a castle in 1373. In 1415 the castle was owned by Sir John Widdrington but it was occupied by the Swinburns. In 1541 a band of Armstrongs, Elliots and Crosiers broke into the barmkin using ladders, injured the keeper and stole nine horses. There were alterations in c.1780, c.1816 and 1845. A west wing was added by Salvin in 1876. The interior was altered in 1889, but still has two Jacobean fireplaces from Newcastle. The original mid-C13 hall house may have had a two-storey hall block with a taller solar tower at the east end, the whole heightened in C14 when the arcades (a defensive feature, meurtriere in the arch soffits protecting the wall foot) were infilled. A barmkin was visible in 1538. Houghton; Hawghton