Michelham Priory

TQ 50 NE 18/502

ARLINGTON MILTON HIDE Michelham Priory

13.10.52

I A Priory for Augustinian Canons, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was founded here by Gilbert de Aquila in 1229. It was dissolved in 1536. Edward I spent the night of the 14th September, 1302 here. The surviving building is T-shaped, the east and north wings dating from the C13, the west wing from the C16 after the Dissolution.

The building is of stone, the east wing being sandstone.Tiled roof. Two storeys and attic, except the north wing which has three storeys and attic. The south front has nine windows and six modern dormers. Two chimney breasts, one extending down to the ground, the other corbelled out above the ground floor with a pointed doorway below this. Casement windows with stone mullions and dripstones, those in the east wing eing modern. This wing was the Refectory. Its south face has three blocked pointed arches at first floor level and on the ground floor. One similar archway and one four-centred doorway. Its north face has four blocked pointed archways together on the ground floor, two with slender shafts having foliated capitals and deeply chamfered heads. These were the Lavatory.

The north wing, which originally extended further north and has been cut off, was the Prior's Lodging. It has a blocked pointed archway on the ground floor and three similar window openings above containing modern windows. The ground floor room which it contains is a vaulted under-croft. Some masonry further north shows the point to which this wing extended. The north face of the west wing has larger windows and a stone dormer.

Listing NGR: TQ5589309322