The Old Priory And Attached Garden Walls

The Old Priory is a house, possibly dating to the 15th or early 16th century, with alterations made in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is located on Bicester Priory Lane, alongside attached garden walls. The construction is of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and it has a concrete plain-tile roof with brick stacks. The building likely originated as a 4-unit plan.

The south front has a central, 20th-century roughcast projection, but retains a trefoiled lancet window at first floor on the left side. The north front features a wide doorway with a stop-chamfered lintel, and three medieval 2-light windows at first floor. Two of these windows have cinquefoiled lights, one has uncusped arched lights, and all have lost their central mullions. The east gable wall, facing Priory Lane, has a restored 2-light window with a label, arched lights, recessed spandrels, and a single-light opening with a rectangular head at the gable peak. A 20th-century stone-mullioned window has been inserted at ground floor. The steep-pitched roof has a gable stack at the rear and two lateral stacks on the north side, along with one gabled roof dormer. The easternmost bay has casements and a slightly lower roofline and is likely contemporary with the rest of the building.

Inside, the house contains stop-chamfered beams and a 17th-century butt-purlin roof with collars, ties, vertical struts to the trusses, straight windbraces below the purlins, and a diagonally-set ridge piece. A 4-centred doorway was noted in 1968 and is probably within the 20th-century extension on the north side. The building may have functioned as the hospice of Bicester Priory.

The garden walls, which extend from the east gable wall northwards to The Mill (not included), are likely of the same period (15th/early 16th century) as the house and are built with continuous masonry. They are approximately 2.5 metres high but were originally higher, between 3 and 3.5 metres. A 2-centre arched doorway in chamfered marlstone ashlar is located immediately north of the house. The section of wall that runs southwards towards the stables is now in a ruinous state. The walls and buildings together form the enclosure created by the remaining garden walls.