Grange De Lings House

This is a former monastic grange, now part of a later farmhouse, dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries, with 19th-century additions and 20th-century alterations. The building is constructed of roughly coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has a hipped slate roof punctuated by three brick stacks. The main front is two stories and four bays wide, featuring a centrally placed 20th-century half-glazed door with a hood, flanked by single 20th-century four-light windows. Above, a three-light window is flanked by four similar four-light openings. To the left of the facade is a pointed window with 20th-century Y tracery, and evidence of blocked openings is visible beneath later work. On the left-hand side of the front, remnants of a turning stair are visible, alongside a deeply splayed single light window, with the splay facing outward.

Inside, at the left-hand end, a small vaulted room contains a 13th-century pointed window with a single chamfered rear arch. Opposite this is a matching chamfered opening leading to a later room. A turning stair is situated at the corner of the window wall; the threshold to which is 4 feet below the current floor level. There is also a segmental-headed opening with a single chamfer in the room. The room is capped by a 14th-century quadripartite vault formed from two hollow mouldings and a central filleted roll moulding. The ribs spring from triple-shafted responds adorned with naturalistic foliage and originally met at a central boss which has since disintegrated. A central arch on the inner eastern wall is supported by two filleted roll mouldings with a central roll. A small area of plain floor tiles, black and yellow, lies beneath the suspended timber floor. In the hall of the farmhouse, a moulded reveal of a large window can be seen. In the bedroom above, the upper portion of a reticulated traceried window is preserved, with the top visible in the roof space. The 19th-century roof incorporates timbers from the 17th century. Grange de Lings is believed to be a corruption of Grange de Barlings Abbey, and the medieval fabric represents a significant survival of a grange building, the precise purpose of which remains unclear. Historical records indicate that the monks were granted a free warren in 1253 and the grange is referenced in patent rolls from 1325.