Clare Priory

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TL 74 NE 18/127 TL 74 SE 116/127

CLARE Clare Priory

19.12.61.

I Clare Priory was founded in 1248 by Richard de Clare Earl of Clare, Gloucester and Hereford, as a Friary for the Friars Eremites of St Augustine and a cell to the Abbey of Bec in Normandy. It was reconstituted by Edward II in 1326 as a cell to St Peter's Westminster, converted into a college in 1490 by Edmund, Earl of March and made into a dwelling house by Sir Thomas Barnardiston in 1604 (This is recorded by initials and the date carved on a panel of the upstairs panelled room).

The house is timber-framed and plastered with a C14 stone font to the west, with heavy buttresses and a C14 doorway, pointed arched with an old door and an ogee-headed wicket inset. Two storeys and attics. The windows are multi-light, some mullioned and transomed, some mullioned, with arched lights, with leaded lights. The east front has gabled wings at the north and south ends, with three smaller gabled wings between them. The windows are mainly three-light casements with segmental arched heads and leaded lights. Some mullioned and transomed windows, with leaded lights. Roof tiled, with four large gabled dormers with five-light casement windows with leaded lights on the west front, and a number of octagonal shafted chimney stacks.

At the back entrance is an early traceried window with an old door and inside a groin vaulted ceiling (being part of the original cloisters). There is a fine C17 panelled room with an arcaded overmantle. In the C18 and C19 the priory was owned by the Barker family whose arms, in stained glass, is set in one of the mullioned and transomed windows. The hall has fine late C15 carved ceiling beams and there is part of a C14 staircase. At the rear, to the southwest of the priory there is a good C18 room built into the old priory walls. It has stone dressed mullioned and transomed windows with leaded lights. The roof is ogee shaped, tiled, with a ball finial.

Listing NGR: TL7694745010