The Friary and Friary Close

The Friary and Friary Close

This building stands on the south side of Westgare and is now divided into two separate dwellings. It was founded as an Augustinian Friary around 1260 by John Clarel, a canon of Southwell, and was dissolved in 1530. After the Dissolution, it became a private house. The Slyman family held it during the 17th century, followed by the Hawkesworths in the 18th century. Its church once housed the Fitzwilliam tomb until 1538, when the tomb was moved to the Parish Church.

The surviving buildings are substantially from the 14th century, though dating them precisely presents difficulties. They were adapted for domestic use during the 17th century, possibly around the time of a lintel dated 1663, and were enlarged during the 19th century.

The construction is of coursed rubble, with stone slate roofs on the pre-19th-century sections and Welsh slate elsewhere. The building is two storeys with attics. It comprises two mediaeval blocks joined at their south-east and north-west corners respectively. The west block extends westwards in two parts: the first has a 19th-century added first storey and south wing, while the second is ground floor only. A 19th-century wing fills the angle between the two mediaeval blocks. An engraving of 1810 shows sash windows, so nearly all the present mullioned and transom windows date from the 19th century. One possible exception is a two-light stone mullioned window on the ground floor of the north wall of the first western part of the west block, which may be earlier.

The principal pre-19th-century features visible externally include three stepped buttresses on the north side of the west block, above which run sections of plain string course. On the south side of the west block is a straight-headed door, probably from the 18th century, which is shown on the 1810 plan. The east block features a triangular chimney breast resting on very fine moulded corbelling at its west end, with a thinner shaft below the corbelling. The stacks, all corniced, are probably 19th century but appear 18th century in character. The upper part of a trefoil-headed lancet survives on the first floor to the north of the chimney breast; the window below, with Y-tracery, is shown as a sash on the 1810 engraving. On the south wall of the east block at first floor level is a pair of blocked doorways, possibly garderobes. A blocked mediaeval window of two ogival arches survives in the centre of the ground floor of the south front of the east block. On the north side of the western part of the west block is a lintel and Artisan Mannerist rusticated door surround dated 1663, now reset in a porch.

The most spectacular feature is largely internal, though its north end is partly visible from outside. This is a late 15th-century two-bay arcade with moulded two-centred arches springing from embattled capitals adorned with Tudor rose badges and sculpted figures of angels in the spandrels. It runs along the east end of the west block and can only be fully seen from inside the 19th-century infill block. Beneath the southern arch is a 14th-century ogee-headed doorway, presumably reset. Further west along a passage in the west block is a two-centred arch of perhaps 13th-century or at least 14th-century date.