Spinney Abbey

TL 57 NE WICKEN STRETHAM ROAD (South Side) 8/106 Spinney Abbey

II

House dated 1775 on right hand gabled end on or near the site of a C13 priory of Augustinian Canons. The house is built on a plan of two parallel gables linked by a short hall range. The walls are of coursed Barnack ashlar reused from the priory and also of clunch, probably from Burwell. There is some gault brick in the rear walls. Plain tiled gable roofs. Two storeys and attics. Garden front has two cross-frame casements with later glazing, to each gable end and a central doorway. A similar window in the rear wall still retains its original leaded lights. Inside there are two early C17 doors reset in an attic and some square sunken panelling of similar date reset in a bedroom. The house has a cellar lined with clunch with an early C17 stop chamfered ceiling beam. A ground floor room has a reused beam of similar date set diagonally. In the kitchen there is a 1775 shouldered fireplace surround and a corner cupboard with raised and fielded panelling. In the garden to the west there are a number of pieces of C14 moulded Barnack limestone from the priory. One is a wheel-cross, another a bell shaped capital and others quatrefoils with small shafts where the foils meet, the latter pieces of stone probably formed part of an arcade. RCHM: Record Card. Pevsner: Buildings of England, p.485.

Listing NGR: TL5550271753