The Priory

The Priory is a house dating to the late 16th century with later additions, including a date stone of 1718. It is constructed of shell carstone with brick dressings, a pantile roof, and gable parapets. The house comprises a double range of three bays and two storeys, with attics in the front range.

The original front range consists of three cells. A brick axial stack is situated between the second and third bays, featuring two lozenge shafts. The central doorway originally had a semi-circular head and a double door, partly glazed with 18th-century pintle hinges and carved spandrels. The doorcase is moulded, topped with a flat canopy supported by large scroll brackets and a pair of wooden columns. A wrought iron balustrade to the canopy incorporates scrolls and twisted bars, with ramped returns acting as tie irons to the facade wall via wooden pilaster strips. A partly glazed door also opens from the first floor to a balcony beneath the canopy, with a stone plaque above inscribed “D/1718/A E”. The ground floor has flush sashes with glazing bars and four-by-four panes to the left, and a large tripartite sash with glazing bars to the right, both set under flat arches. The first floor has flush sashes, two to the first bay and one to the third bay. There are three roof dormers. The left return has two gables, the front one raised, with an internal stack and a single-storey addition with a hipped pantile roof. The right return also has two gables with bargeboards. A 19th-century fully glazed canted bay window is present on the ground floor of the front range; a blocked doorway is to the right, and a tall two-light casement is on the rear range. The rear of the house features a later 19th-century range of four bays, with an axial stack containing two lozenge shafts, similar to the front range, between the first and second bays. A single-storey, gabled extension is situated between bays one and two, featuring a low circular window to the left.

Inside the front range, the ground floor left room has ovolo moulded principal beams and close ceiling joists with jewel-stopped chamfered ends. A principal staircase, of pine open well closed string construction with turned balusters and a ramped landing balustrade, is located in the central cell. A staircase also leads to the attic floor between the left and central cell. The roof is of butt purlin construction, with pine principal rafters and oak purlins. The rear range contains a through passage alongside the front range. The Priory’s name relates to the Priory of Wymondham in Norfolk, which held land in North Wootton.