[1] It has a central projecting section topped by a pediment, with a stone doorway flanked with Tuscan columns.

The present almshouses stand on the site of a 16th-century building, originally the mansion of the Mainwaring family and later the town's House of Correction and workhouse.

The site has been identified by local historian James Hall as the location of the mansion of the Mainwaring family at the end of Beam Street, which was described by William Webb in 1622 or 1623 as "the fine house of the Mainwarings", one of the five principal houses of the town.

[2][3] In 1644, on the death of Lady Margaret Norton, the building passed to the Dodd family of Edge, from whom it was purchased by Robert Wright before 1666.

Four of the terraced houses were vacant and boarded up, the whole building was suffering from damp, and the gardens had become a waste tip.

[11] In 1963 the charity trustees considered it impossible to renovate the almshouses, and it was proposed to demolish the building and replace it with modern flats for the elderly.

[14] In 1973–75, a restoration programme was carried out, and the existing Crewe Almshouses building was converted into fourteen single-storey flats for the elderly.

[14] Crewe Almshouses is a terrace of seven two-storey houses totalling thirteen bays, in red brick under a slate roof.

[1][11] Above the entrance door is an inscribed stone tablet framed with decorative stonework including a keystone motif above and two corbels below.