Kirklees Priory Gatehouse

Gatehouse to Kirklees Priory, now a standing ruin. An early 16th-century timber-framed single cell, partially encased in large dressed stone, with an added cell dating to the late 16th or early 17th century. The building has a stone slate roof.

The original timbered gatehouse was probably open to the ground floor to form an entry; this opening has since been filled in with large dressed stone blocks bearing marks that may have been plundered from the priory itself.

The east gable is timber-framed only from the first floor upwards. Heavy jowled posts carry a projecting wall plate with a decorative rosette to the stop, supported on decorated braces. The wall plates carry a cambered tie beam carved with a flowing vine scroll interspersed with hunting dogs in the upper portion and a vertically carved stag in the lower part. The tie beam supports a king post truss with four V-struts pegged to the principal rafters, which carry projecting trenched purlins.

Below the tie beam is a four-light oriel window with wooden ovolo moulded mullions, glazed with thirty-six square leaded lights. These sit in a heavy crude sill with a mortice to the right-hand end, possibly once overlaid with a decorated rail now perished. The oriel is supported on five coved uprights pegged to close studs with bulbous crochet. To either side, set back from the window and gable, are decorated close-studded walls with offset diagonal studs. The gable apex is capped by a wooden finial and protected by oversailing slates.

The return wall is faced in ashlar to the eaves at the angle and shows evidence of a first-floor doorway, now solid with hammer-dressed stone. To the left of this, the wall is faced in hammer-dressed stone and features a solid stone stair of fifteen risers. Level with the landing is an extruded lateral stack in ashlar. A curious weathered course sits two courses higher than the eaves. The only entry to the first floor is adjacent to this, via a doorway with a square-headed lintel level with the eaves and chamfered opposite jambs.

The west gable has stone courses running through to the outside of the staircase but with a straight break higher up. The ground floor is again in large dressed stone and has the only entry to ground floor—a doorway with a square lintel notched at the top corners, composite jambs, and chamfered surround. A single-light window has a string course termination with a straight return from an adjacent stone block.

The first floor of the west gable is timber-framed, forming three vertical divisions. The topmost is formed by a king post truss with four V-struts; the king post has a heavily jowled head with an exposed ridge tree set square and oversailing slates to the gable. Below the tie beam, which has a hollow chamfer to its soffit, is a long wooden mullioned window of full width with seven lights, ovolo moulded mullions, and twenty-one small square leaded lights. It has a single piece undecorated sill. Beneath and set back is a close-studded wall with decorative V-studs forming an alternating pattern of upright and inverted Vs. Attached to the left-hand side is a stone extension that breaks forward, with corner windows featuring double-chamfered mullions of two lights on both floors. Above the ground-floor window is a string course that continues around the building; above the first-floor window is a hoodmould. A tall lateral stack has a weathered course and two diamond-set flues.

The south front is of a single cell with coped gables and kneelers. Double-chamfered mullioned windows feature a king mullion of six lights on the ground floor and twelve lights with a transom on the first floor, with a three-light attic window and hoodmould. Another two-storey cell breaks forward from the return wall in similar character to a two-storey porch but without a doorway. This cell has a blocked window on the ground floor in the south return wall and a four-light double-chamfered mullioned window to the first floor, with the same to the west gabled front, which is coped with kneelers.

Interior: The ground floor contains a large fireplace with a square lintel to the south-facing room. The first floor of the timber portion consists of two bays formed by a central king post truss resting on posts with slightly arched braces. The south-facing room has decorative plasterwork bosses alternating between fleur-de-lys and flowers in a vase. Doorways to closets have low Tudor arch lintels with hollow spandrels and chamfered surround. The roof was renewed in the late 19th century.