The Priory With Attached Outbuildings And Garden Walls

THE PRIORY WITH ATTACHED OUTBUILDINGS AND GARDEN WALLS

A house of late 15th or early 16th-century origins, altered and extended in the early 17th century and around 1730, refronted circa 1770, and further altered and extended in the early 19th century and 1877 for A. Pearse, M.D. (datestone to rear left). The building is constructed of timber frame, rendered, with substantial later rebuilding and extension in various red bricks. It has a steeply pitched pantiled roof with slate-roofed additions. Originally probably an open hall, though the early plan is obscure; remodelled as a 3-cell range with 2 storeys and attic.

The principal facade is a 5-bay symmetrical front with steps up to a central entrance. The recessed door is raised with fielded 6-panelled detailing beneath a Roman Doric porch with fluted columns. The windows are 2-light glazing bar casements with Gothick glazing and gauged brick flat-arched heads. The early 18th-century ornamental brick surround to the central first-floor window has rusticated jambs and an apron with torus moulded sides and guttae below. The plinth is offset, with a plat band having a cyma moulded underside and boxed eaves. A central small box dormer contains 3 Gothick lights.

An 18th-century internal stack with moulded kneelers and coped gable parapet rises at the left or service end. The right gable end features a 2-storey 5-sided bay window with architraved glazing bar sashes, ground-floor blind boxes, and first-floor modillioned cornice. Panelled pargetting divides the storeys, with the gable above displaying exposed double purlins. An 1877 bay added to the left or service end incorporates a ground-floor 2-light lattice leaded window with segmental head and a gable-end first-floor canted oriel window; a stack rises at the rear corner.

The rear elevation shows rendered walls behind the parlour with an 18th-century external stack with offsets. Behind the hall stands an external stack within a 19th-century 2-storey lean-to containing an architraved door and 2-light Gothick margin-glazed casement. A short pantiled 2-storey stair wing projects to the right of centre, surrounded by later accretions. An early 19th-century 2-bay 2-storey wing extends into the garden with slightly projecting ground floor, 16-pane sashes, and hipped slate roof. Its service or outer return is rendered with a late 19th-century brick lean-to outshut having a half-glazed door, formerly a Doctor's waiting room. Behind the 18th-century service end stands an early 19th-century slate-roofed bay with an axial end stack. A late 19th-century bay projects to the rear with a lower 2-storey gabled wing featuring 2-light casements and a datestone.

Interior: The hall contains a 17th-century ovolo moulded cross-axial binding beam on 18th-century panelled pilasters and an architraved fireplace. The parlour has an 18th-century lugged fireplace surround, raised dado panelling, and cornice. The service end contains 17th-century stop-chamfered joists and a cambered fireplace bressumer. Early frame largely remains concealed, though the first floor reveals a post with rebated section and large arched brace, chambered wallplate, and traces of a large early hall window over the service end. The later roof to the right displays lower staggered tenoned purlins, upper clasped purlins, collars to principals, and reverse curved and straight windbraces.

Extending from the largest rear addition is a red brick garden wall approximately 40 metres long, returning some 20 metres to the south-west to enclose the bottom of the garden. It has an offset plinth rising about 2 metres high, with glass houses towards the front. From the service side of this wall are privy and stabling lean-tos in red brick. To the north-east is a red brick and flint wall, returned along Chapel Lane and Mill Road enclosing a vegetable garden approximately 25 metres square. A 19th-century coach house in flint with red brick dressings projects into the service yard, featuring a hipped slate roof and 2 storeys. It has 2 coach doors with cambered heads, a hay loft door, and a 2-light casement; a stable door and dovecote openings are at the rear. A 1-storey tack room outbuilding towards the front contains 2 doors to the yard. This constitutes an unusually complete group of service buildings.