Priory Farmhouse

Priory Farmhouse, now a house, dates back to the 14th century, originally built as a hall house. It was extended around 1500 with a new service bay, creating a through-passage plan separating the hall. The hall was ceiled over in the 17th century, and the north wall was rebuilt during the same period. A fireplace and staircase were added to the service bay. Significant alterations and additions occurred in the 18th century, including the introduction of a first floor, a new butt purlin roof, bolection moulded fireplaces, and sash windows.

The farmhouse is constructed of squared, coursed ironstone, with ashlar facing on the south wall above the hall window. The main front features a 14th-century original hall house on the right, covered by a 20th-century wood shingle roof, and a 15th-century section on the left with a steeply pitched 20th-century tile roof. Two stone end stacks are present. The house has a 2-unit through-passage plan and two storeys, with a three-window range. The entrance to the 15th-century section has a doorway with a four-centred arched head and hood mould with lozenge-shaped label stops, ornamented spandrels with quatrefoil decoration, and a heavily weathered plank door secured internally by an oak drawbar. To the left of the doorway is a two-light flat-splay stone mullion with a hood mould. Above the doorway is a three-light wood mullioned window with metal casements and wrought-iron fasteners. A staircase projection is on the far left. The 14th-century part on the right has three- and four-light flat-splay stone mullioned windows with hood moulds. The first floor has two- and four-light casement windows with wood lintels, and two small blocked attic windows framed in stone.

At the rear, a renewed 14th/early 15th-century four-light stone mullioned great window with curvilinear tracery in its head is visible within the original hall section, along with a four-light casement and a 20th-century window on the first floor. The right section has an 18th-century doorway with an overlight and a 20th-century door, two sash windows on the right, and three sashes on the first floor, all with stone flat arches.

The interior retains the original plan of the hall, through-passage, and service area. The hall, measuring 17 feet by 19 feet, has walls averaging 2 feet 6 inches in thickness, a wide stone fireplace with a bressumer, a stop-chamfered beam, and a raised cruck roof with collars and upper collars, now covered by a 20th-century roof above the 14th-century part. The service bay, now a parlour, features an 18th-century bolection moulded stone fireplace, a moulded stone dado, a plank door with an H-L hinge, and panelled shutters with wrought-iron fasteners. The first floor has plank and two-panelled doors and a 20th-century staircase.

This is an important example exhibiting medieval precedents for regional style and building practice that became commonplace in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was likely built by Wroxton Abbey in connection with its holdings at Balscott.