Remains Of Cluniac Benedictine Priory Of St Mary And St Peter And St Paul

Remains of a Cluniac Benedictine Priory of St Mary and St Peter and St Paul

This is the remains of a Cluniac Benedictine Priory founded in 1090 by William de Warrene, second Earl of Surrey, and dissolved in 1537. The priory comprises a 12th-century church and monastery, with significant alterations and additions made in the 15th and 16th centuries, particularly in the west range which was converted into a Prior's Lodging.

The Church

The church is built of stone-faced flint and survives in cruciform plan with a monastic quadrangle to the south. The west elevation is of early 12th-century Romanesque design and remains standing to parapet height. The facade is tripartite, with a nave gable featuring a central round-arched door with four orders. The arch itself is decorated with diaper, rope, zig-zag and bobbin sections. Flanking bands of interlace blank arches are arranged in three stages. A large Perpendicular west window is positioned between diaper-patterned Norman blank windows. Clasping nook-shafted buttresses extend to parapet height. The aisles each have a single round-arched door, blank windows and interlaced arches above. At the south-west, a fourth storey above the aisle is formed by a Transitional tower with two shafted two-pointed arched windows on each face, accompanied by blank arcading and interlace work.

The south elevation of the nave survives with one bay of arcade showing a gallery and clerestorey with a half passage above. The piers feature diagonal grooving, with wall shafts running through three storeys that formerly supported an unvaulted roof. The south aisle is vaulted. Remains of the 12th-century nave, aisles, crossing, transepts, chapels, choir and sanctuary survive. Compound section piers display polychrome banding in greystone and carstone. The east end originally terminated in apses after Cluny II style but was altered to square ends in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The Monastic Buildings

The 12th-century monastic quadrangle to the south contained a Chapter house, Dormitory with undercroft and stairs, and garde-robes. A rere-dorter at right angles to the south features drains and lavatories and was arched over the river. A 12th-century Norman and 14th-century Infirmary also survives. The south range contains a Norman Refectory and kitchen, with a further later kitchen beyond.

The West Range and Prior's Lodging

The west range houses the 12th-century Prior's Lodging and west gate, which were extensively altered in the 15th and 16th centuries. A central porch dating to around 1500 is constructed of flint chequerwork with timber framing, gabled and pantiled with two storeys. It features a four-centred arched entrance and window. A 12th-century zig-zag arched passage with two bays of rib vaulting connects to this area. The facade of the 12th-century west range to the north was refaced in the 12th century, with the north-west range further refaced in the 16th century. Two-storey gabled west elevations feature a 15th-century first-floor stone oriel. The north face has a stone bowed first-floor window on a buttress base with squinches, possibly dating to the 16th century post-Dissolution period. A Norman ground-floor door survives.

The interior of the west range includes a ground-floor 12th-century aisled vaulted undercroft with a parlatorium to the north. The first floor contains the Prior's Chapel with a 12th-century arched apsed sanctuary, a 14th-century east window and sedile. A 15th-century scissor-braced roof with remains of an inner moulded ceiling survives, though a presumed post-Dissolution 16th-century inserted chimney stack divides the space into two chambers. Further detached, possibly agricultural, buildings stand to the south-west.

The priory is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and is in the care of Historic England.