St Mary's Abbey and boundary walls

St Mary's Abbey is a mid-18th-century house that was altered in the late 1820s and early 1830s, and subsequently adapted from 1835 onwards for use as a priory. It has functioned as an abbey since 1928. The buildings are constructed primarily of stone with slate roofs, supplemented by brick and rendered sections.

The plan arranges the main entrance elevation facing east, with the principal garden front facing south. A loose courtyard arrangement extends to the north with various attached buildings, and further outbuildings and farm buildings lie to the north and east, including a small mortuary chapel.

The exterior presents the main building in the Gothick style. The eastern entrance elevation features a sanctuary projection at its southern end, with pointed arch windows displaying reticulated tracery and a crenellated parapet. The principal feature is a gabled section positioned between two turrets. At first-floor level within the gable sits a tripartite window with carved and crocketted ogee hoods above and an ornate panel with shield at the apex. These crown a bowed projection at ground floor level containing tall square-headed windows with Gothick-style tracery, one now enclosed within a chapel extension. The entrance door is positioned to the right of this section, with a plain two-light window above and a further canted bay and square bay beyond. A plain rendered gable completes the elevation, which is topped throughout by a crenellated parapet.

The southern garden elevation is the principal facade, featuring a tall central turreted section flanked by lower wings, also with turrets. Three tall windows in the central section display perpendicular-style tracery and light the nave of the chapel within. Above these stands a figure of the Virgin and Child beneath an elaborate Gothic canopy, with small windows to either side topped by ornate pointed hoods and further square-headed windows beyond. The bays flanking the central section contain first-floor oriel windows. The western end of the elevation features a full-height canted bay with Gothick-traceried windows; those at ground floor level have pointed heads with hoodmoulds featuring carved label stops. The eastern end presents the chapel sanctuary and a single-storey projection with perpendicular-style windows.

The rear elevations consist largely of plain rendered surfaces with mixed window styles. A small bell tower with louvred openings and a large clock below it sits at the rear of the main block, alongside a tall 19th-century wing to the west. A large late-20th-century block connects to the Abbey's western end via a timber-constructed cloister walk; this block, the timber link, and an associated single-storey brick building are not of special interest.

The interior opens from the entrance into a flagged hall containing the main staircase and an enclosure door, with access to the chapel through decorative Gothick panelled doors to the south. The chapel is approached via the sacristy and accessed through an opening in the ornate bay window. The nave occupies what would have been a principal room of the original house and features three ogee arches with decorative plasterwork forming an arcade, with the organ positioned in a recess to the north. Collegiate seating with plain misericords, brought from St Scholastica's Priory at Atherstone in Warwickshire following its amalgamation with St Mary's in 1967, furnishes the nave. The ceiling is flat plaster with simple decoration. Between the nave and sanctuary is a painted ceiling section in Tudor Gothic style, beneath which sits a small gallery overlooking the space. The sanctuary beyond has a compartmentalised ceiling with stencilled decoration and is flanked by small chapels with decorative iron screens and gates.

A door from the chapel's west end accesses the nuns' chapter room, which contains the Mother Abbess's chair set in a blocked door with ornate surround. An ornate plaster ceiling and timber wainscoting surround the walls. The south wall displays a recess with Gothick-style plasterwork and three niches within under ogee hoods. A plaster roundel with heraldic imagery, thought to relate to a previous building owner, appears in the recess ceiling.

A further room at the building's western end features a plaster ceiling comparable to that of the chapter room, with extensive additional plasterwork including detail around the bay window and in a buffet recess. These rooms connect via a hall with decorative floor tiles and a quadripartite vaulted ceiling. A further tiled corridor with a simple plaster vault runs north-south through the building. Servants' bells, assumed to survive from before the nuns took residence, are located towards the building's northern end.

The principal stair, adjacent to the main entrance, features timber stick balusters rising in an open well to the first floor, with numerous rooms accessed from it, all with timber panelled doors. At the stair's base is the enclosure door, beyond which is a further dog-leg stair of similar character with simple timber brackets, rising the full height of the building.

Extensive gardens surround the Abbey, enclosed by tall brick walls, mostly of mid-19th-century date with some later sections. To the north-east are ranges of brick outbuildings and farm buildings, a later 19th-century house, and a 20th-century house associated with the Abbey; these houses are not of special interest. An iron gate with iron railings on a low brick wall marks the entrance to the Abbey forecourt.