St Mary'S Abbey

St Mary's Abbey is a house that now serves as a Benedictine abbey. It was originally remodeled around 1840 from an earlier 19th-century house and was extended in 1913. The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and features slate roofs with lead roll ridges, stone coped parapeted gable ends, and parapets. There are axial and lateral stacks with brick diagonally-set shafts.

The plan consists of a long south front range from circa 1840, with the entrance located at the center of a 3-bay block on the left (west) and a 5-bay wing to the right (east). There are extensive earlier 19th-century ranges at the rear, with the right (east) wing added in 1913, all designed in a Tudor style.

The exterior is two storeys with an attic and has a long south front with 5:4:1 bays. The left side features five bays, with gabled outer bays that include two-storey canted bay windows and a two-storey porch at the center, which has a moulded 4-centred arch doorway. There are narrow single-light windows between the porch and the gabled outer bays. The right side has a four-bay range set back, with a projecting gabled bay that includes a two-storey canted bay window. At the rear, there are three-storey red brick ranges and wings surrounding a small courtyard, along with attached lodges to the northwest flanking a carriageway arch that serves as the main entrance to the Abbey.

The interior retains much of its circa 1840 character, including panelled doors and architraves, moulded plaster ceiling cornices, chimneypieces, and a staircase featuring brass balusters and a moulded mahogany handrail.

The Benedictine community was founded in Ghent in 1624. They returned to England in 1794 and initially settled in Caverswall Castle before moving to Oulton in 1853, where they established this house and built a monastic church in 1854, followed by the addition of the Presbytery in 1892.