The Abbey

The Abbey

This is a two-storey house with attic, built in the 18th century directly over the 13th-century undercroft of a Benedictine Priory. The building has a rectangular plan with a projecting pedimented entrance bay on the south side.

The lower walls, rising to first-floor level, are constructed of coursed clunch, much of which was rebuilt or greatly renewed in the 18th century. Substantial areas retain finely jointed and coursed medieval knapped flint. Door and window openings are generally of Barnack limestone, restored in places with Clipsham limestone. The clashing buttresses are 18th-century work but incorporate stone from the medieval building. The upper two floors are of 18th-century yellow brick with red brick dressings, and the roof is covered in plain clay tiles of 21st-century date.

On the north wall of the undercroft, the wall has been largely refaced in clunch on its original plane. The bases of two buttresses were revealed during excavation work in the early 21st century, and two further bases were subsequently added either side of the central arched doorway. This doorway has a pointed segmental head with a hacked-back clunch label and continuous limestone jambs of two chamfered orders. The two bays to the left have two-light mullion windows of Clipsham stone, added in the early 21st century to replace a blocked doorway and smaller window. In each of the two bays to the right is a fragmentary chamfered sill of a two-light window, now blocked externally. The far right end bay has a new stone window surround replacing the former wooden-framed window.

The east wall has, from left to right, a small multi-pane window in a wooden frame of post-medieval date, a doorway in an enlarged opening, and a small bricked-up window opening.

On the south wall the undercroft has been partially obscured by the addition of a central pedimented projection built in the 18th century. This projection contains a round-headed doorway with rusticated quoins of clunch, built out from and thereby preserving the original doorway, and flanking circular windows. The two bays to the left retain the original splayed jambs (not visible externally). The first has an 18th-century window opening with a new sliding sash, and the second is blocked up. Medieval flint repairs are visible in this area of the wall. To the right of the projecting bay a new window opening with a sliding sash was made in the early 21st century.

The west wall also contains areas of knapped flint repairs carried out in the medieval period. To the left is a deeply recessed medieval doorway with an inner chamfered pointed segmental head and an outer segmental arch. To the right is a small blocked opening, possibly a locker.

A red brick platband divides the undercroft from the upper floors, which are in yellow brick with red brick dressings. The corner buttresses continue from the ground floor in brick with red brick quoins, giving the impression of pilaster strips. The roof has kneelered parapets with stone coping and rendered square chimney stacks at both gable ends. On the north wall are two tall chimney stacks emerging at eaves level. The house has a deep cornice ornamented with a double sawtooth which runs across the long north and south elevations and around the buttresses.

On the principal south elevation there is a projecting pedimented centrepiece lit by three recessed sliding sash windows, the central one blind, with cambered brick arches. The pediment is pierced by a round window. None of the fenestration is original. The wider flanking bays each have one similar sash window. The north elevation is lit by five sash windows, the central three slightly larger, with three dormer windows under hipped roofs lighting the attic, positioned wholly in the roof space. The gable ends have two sashes and two smaller sliding sashes above in the attic, except for the right-hand aperture on the east gable end which contains a door leading out onto an external fire escape.

Interior

The undercroft contains quadripartite ribbed vaulting, chamfered, with ribs springing from three octagonal columns with moulded capitals. The responds have similar half-octagonal columns with moulded caps. The bases are hidden except for the chamfered respond base in the south-west corner. The columns of the arcade, the responds, and the doorway jambs are all of Barnack limestone, but the capitals, which are contemporary, are of clunch. The plan is divided by a partition wall between the second and third bays with later openings.

In the central bay of the north wall is the original doorway with a chamfered segmental arch. The two bays to the left each had lockers: the second has twin recesses with round heads and rebates for doors, and the first was probably similar, but a post-medieval window was later inserted with brick splays. To the right are two splayed two-centred arch window openings with two-light mullions inserted in the early 21st century.

In the south wall, from left to right, the second bay has a locker with a two-centred head, slots for a shelf and rebate for a door. The central bay contains a door, and the two bays to the right have splayed two-pointed arch window openings. The west wall contains a substantial fireplace of red brick with a cambered arch, added in the 18th century. The bay to the right has a blocked doorway.

The upper floors of the 18th-century house retain a floor plan largely intact with a long corridor on the north side and rooms arranged along the south front. On the first floor the middle two rooms have been created from one originally much larger room. The rooms have simple 18th-century door architraves and one symmetrical-turned baluster from the original staircase survives, along with a short section of moulded handrail, the rest having been replaced. None of the fireplaces are original.