The Old Hall and The Priory

The Old Hall and The Priory are a group of former buildings, now three dwellings, located on Priory Road in Ecclesfield. The core of the complex dates back to around 1300, originally comprising a chapel block with a contemporary crosswing, both significantly altered and restored in the 19th century. A house was added in 1736. The buildings are constructed of sandstone, with the chapel block using thinly coursed rubble, the crosswing using coursed and squared stone, and the house featuring ashlar. The roofs are tiled, with stone slate on the crosswing.

The buildings form an irregular range. The chapel block is three storeys high with two bays. To its left is a two-storey crosswing with a single-bay gable set back. Finally, to the left of the crosswing stands the 1736 house, three storeys high with five bays, and a two-storey single-bay addition on its left side.

The chapel block has large quoins and set-back, offset buttresses on the right side. An arched doorway is positioned on the right, and a square-headed window on the left, with a matching window on the first floor. The upper floor features a two-light, trefoil-headed window to the right and a single cusped lancet window to the left, both with leaded lights.

The crosswing has a tall, three-light, cavetto-moulded mullion and transom window on the ground floor, the central light serving as a doorway. This is topped by a hoodmould with square stops. Directly above is a similar three-light window with a round-headed central light, also with a hoodmould. The gable has copings and a ball finial.

The 1736 house has a chamfered plinth. The central doorway is part-glazed, set within a chamfered, quoined surround, and carries a dated lintel. Ground and first floor bays have cross-mullioned wood casements beneath flat arches. The second floor has three windows of two lights set beneath the eaves. A lower, two-storey addition to the left has a three-light casement on each floor.

On the right return, the chapel has a lancet window beneath the east window, which itself consists of three trefoil-headed lancets under a single arch with a hoodmould. A 19th-century stack rises from the eaves with twin conical shafts. In the angle between the chapel and crosswing is an external stack with a shaped shaft. The crosswing has a small, 18th-century, flat-roofed, single-storey porch with a panelled door and an oeil-de-bouef window to its right. Above the porch are two cavetto-moulded three-light mullion windows, and the upper floor features a cross-mullioned window to the left, and a multi-light window to the right, with a transom. A blocked upper floor doorway stands to the right, with a chamfered, quoined surround.

Internally, the chapel contains a piscina beneath a south window and a fitted aumbry in the rear wall. The crosswing has an original pointed doorway leading to the chapel. 19th-century tiled fireplaces depict The Priory, Ecclesfield Church, and scenes of St. Wandrille. A barrel-vaulted plaster ceiling, with acanthus and grape motifs in relief panels, is found in a first-floor room.

Historically, Ecclesfield Priory served as an alien cell of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Wardrille in Normandy.