The Old Priory And Attached Garden Walls

BICESTER PRIORY LANE SP5822S (West side) 3/96 The Old Priory and attached 31/01/52 garden walls (Formerly listed as The Old Priory)

GV II*

House and garden walls. Possibly C15/early C16, altered C17/C18. Coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings; concrete plain-tile roof with brick stacks. Probable 4-unit plan. 2 storeys plus attics. South front has a central C20 roughcast projection but retains, to left, a trefoiled lancet at first floor; other doorways and casements are later insertions. North front has a wide doorway with a stop-chamfered lintel, and at first floor has 3 medieval 2-light windows with label moulds: 2 have cinquefoiled lights, one has uncusped arched lights, and all have lost their central mullions. East gable wall, facing Priory Lane, has a restored 2-light window with label, arched lights and recessed spandrels, and in the gable has a single-light opening with a rectangular head; at ground floor is an inserted C20 stone-mullioned window. Steep-pitched roof has a gable stack to rear plus 2 lateral stacks on the north side, and has one gabled roof dormer. Easternmost bay has casements and a slightly lower roof but is probably contemporary, Interior: noted as having stop-chamfered beams, and a C17 butt-purlin roof with collars, ties and vertical struts to the trusses, straight windbraces below the purlins, and a diagonally-set ridge piece. A 4-centred doorway noted in 1968 is probably within the C20 extension on the north side. The building may have been the hospice of Bicester Priory. The masonry of the garden wall extending from the east gable wall northwards to The Mill (not included) is continuous with that of the house and is probably contemporary (C15/early C16); the wall is approximately 2.5 metres high but appears to have been originally 3 metres to 3.5 metres high. Immediately north of the house is a 2-centre arched doorway in chamfered marlstone ashlar. The section of wall running southwards to the stables (q.v.) is now ruinous. The walls and buildings complete the enclosure formed by the remaining garden walls (q.v.). (V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vol.VI, p.16; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, p.455; D. Hinton, "Bicester Priory", 0xoniensia, Vol.33, pp.26-7; D. Watts, A Short History of Bicester Priory, pp.10 and 13).

Listing NGR: SP5842322118