Smokehouse, Craster, Craster, Northumberland

Summary

Smokehouse, mid-C19, possibly part converted from an existing building.

Description

Smokehouse, mid-C19, possibly part converted from an existing building.

MATERIALS: locally quarried whin stone with roughly cut dressings in the same stone; pantile roof covering; timber slats vents.

PLAN: rectangular, divided internally into two double and one triple smoke rooms with a fuel store to the left end.

EXTERIOR: stone-built full-height building beneath pitched roofs of pantiles with smoke vents. The elevation facing the main road is of at least two phases: the right end comprises a tall, narrow building with a rubble plinth, a steeply-pitched roof and rough quoins to both ends. It has a pair of upper small window openings with crude stone lintels and sills and simple timber frames; one window is timber slatted and the other has a fixed upper pane and a louvered lower pane. There is a single timber smoke vent to either pitch with timber slats to the front. The right return is blind with reverse crow stepped gable or skew stones, and the left return also has skew stones. Attached to the left gable there is a slightly set back later addition with a shallower pitched roof and a full-length, upstanding timber slatted ridge vent; the latter has a pair of openings with timber boarded fronts. This part of the building appears to be secondary and given the difference in stonework between the lower and upper parts, the building may have been raised upon an existing stone yard enclosure wall. The rear elevation is obscured by later ranges.

INTERIOR: within the later rear ranges, the lower part of the rear wall of the smokehouse is visible, pierced by several openings, all with replaced timber doors. The doors open into one triple and two double smoke rooms, with smoke blackened interiors. The timber smoking racks known locally as 'lungs' onto which the herring are hung during the smoking process are retained. The left smoke room is now used as a fuel store.

History

By the C18 and early C19 Britain had possibly the world's largest fishing industry around its coast. It became a major form of commerce in the north east as cities such as Newcastle and South Shields developed, with markets and small communities thriving as important centres for fishing and fish processing. The low cost of herring made it a staple source of food for the poor and the scale of operations to support this demand was large; during the C19 and early C20, herring yards were found in practically every town and village along the north east coast. A small proportion of fresh fish was sold to local buyers in the daily fish markets while the remainder were pickled, or from the mid-C19 when smoking was introduced to the curing process, smoked, and transported to markets elsewhere. There was a sharp decline of the herring business along the east coast in the 1920s and 1930s causing the bankruptcy of many firms during this period.

Craster has long been associated with the fishing and fish curing trades, and curing may well have taken place before the purpose-built yards were created. In the C19 and early C20 several Craster inhabitants were employed in fish-curing yards preparing, pickling and smoking herring or as coopers for the export trade to Europe. Boulmer’s Directory of 1887 lists four fish curers, including William Archbold who was also a grocer and cod liver oil manufacturer, and Robert Grey who was also victualler at the Jolly Fisherman's Inn. The four yards were closely located and lay to either side of Haven Hill including the existing Robson’s Yard ('top' yard) and the 'bottom' yard on the foreshore (demolished). By 1889 it is understood that Messrs Cormack & Son were the main herring curers.

Robson's Smokehouse, is thought to have been constructed by the Craster family in 1856. The presence of skew stones on the gable ends of part of the building is usually seen as an early feature in vernacular buildings in Northumberland, and could suggest that this part of the smokehouse was created out of an existing building. The 1:10,560 Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1861 depicts the smokehouse as part of one range of four building ranges placed around a large, central open yard. James William Robson who worked in a kipper yard in Newton moved to Craster at the end of the C19 to work in what was known as the 'bottom' smokehouse for a William Archbold. James Robson subsequently bought the 'top' yard from the Craster family in 1906 and and his son Luke Robson established the business in what became Robson's Smokehouse. The smokehouse has remained in the same family to the present day, and the kippers are produced in the traditional way. Herring are hung on tenter hooks and placed in the smoke rooms for 16 hours where they are smoked by fires on the ground below of whitewood shavings and oak sawdust. The roof and vents have been renewed over the years, as have the doors to the smoke rooms.

Reasons for Listing

The Smokehouse, Craster, of 1853, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is a significant survival of an increasingly rare building type that was once a common feature of C19 coastal towns, but has proved vulnerable to demolition and alteration;

* externally it is well-preserved and illustrates key smokehouse features, including its characteristic form of a tall, narrow windowless building with pantiles and roof-top smoke vents;

* internally its historic integrity is retained, including the smoke-blackened chambers with wooden racks, which directly illustrate the fish-smoking process;

* it compares favourably to listed examples of the building type, including those at Spittal, Whitby and Lowestoft.

Historic interest:

* a reminder of the once widespread north-east coast herring industry and its commercial significance in a national context.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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