The Priory

The Priory is a house dating from the mid-18th century, located in Old Windsor. Originally built for Richard Bateman, a friend of Horace Walpole and pioneer of the "Sharawagge" or Chinoiserie style, the house was constructed in the 1740s and subsequently modified. In 1759, Richard Bentley added a cloister, now demolished, introducing Gothic elements. Further alterations occurred between 1761 and 1762 when Johann Heinrich Muntz designed and added an octagonal Gothic room. The building comprises two parallel ranges, constructed of red brick with stone dressings and a tile roof with brick end chimneystacks. The front elevation has two full-height canted bays with late 19th-century windows. A stone-coped brick parapet features a tall open arch with a pyramidal finial over the central bays. A replaced glazed door is recessed in a plain reveal, two steps leading up to it. A projecting two-bay brick wing has a parapet with panels of intersecting circles, late 19th-century casements and French windows to the ground floor. A large early 20th-century, Jacobean-style porch features Tuscan columns and strapwork decoration on the frieze. A single-story brick extension to the left incorporates stone pilasters and four 12-pane windows leading to an octagonal brick garden room with a slate roof and three French windows. The interior's most significant feature is Muntz's Gothic-style octagon room, which features a ceiling of narrow ribs with plastered tracery supported by half columns cut off at dado level. It also contains a fireplace with a green marble lining, a Gothic frieze, pilasters, and walls with arched and ogee patterns. A doorcase, once leading to the cloister, has traceried detail. The entrance hall includes an ogee-arched fireplace. Ground floor rooms have Edwardian panelling, while one room features a Georgian-style fireplace with eared architraves, dado panelling, an elaborate plastered ceiling decorated with fruit and flower motifs and heavy brackets, a 18th-century six-panelled door. Originally known as The Grove, the house's design reflects its position in the development of the Gothic Revival.