Priory Farmhouse

Priory Farmhouse

This farmhouse incorporates the remains of St. Leonard's Priory of the Gilbertine Order, which existed by the mid-12th century originally as a leprosy hospital. The priory was dissolved in 1538, and in 1614 its remains were incorporated into a large house built on the site, much of which has since disappeared.

The present building comprises three distinct ranges, read from left to right. The leftmost (western) range dates to the late 18th or early 19th century and replaced an earlier 17th-century range. The middle range has a projecting gabled form with a datestone of 1614. The rightmost (eastern) range is the earliest, dating to the late 13th or early 14th century and later remodelled in the 17th century.

The late 18th/early 19th-century range is constructed of ashlar ironstone with a steeply pitched slate roof and stone-coped gables. Stone ridge and end stacks have brick shafts with chamfered bases. This two-storey range with attic comprises seven windows across its length. An approximately central entrance is reached by five stone steps, featuring a six-panelled door with a keyblock head. The entrance is flanked by three sashes of four panes with keyblock heads. The first floor has seven similar windows. Three gabled roof dormers light the attic. Six two-light stone mullioned cellar windows are now covered with deal panelling.

The central gable-fronted porch range of 1614 is also constructed of ashlar ironstone with a steeply pitched slate roof and stone-coped gables. It is two storeys plus attic with a single window. Two entrances survive: on the left a doorway with a chamfered four-centred arched head, hood mould and label stops, and a six-panelled door; on the right a doorway inserted within the stone frame of a former stone mullioned window with hood mould and label stop. A two-light window of 16th-century date survives on the far left. The first and attic floors have four- and three-light stone mullioned windows with hood moulds and label stops, with a string course to the first floor.

The rightmost doorway opens to a passage that descends via stone steps to an original 13th or 14th-century pointed arched doorway with hollow chamfering, mirrored by a similar doorway opposite. The passage contains two bays of quadripartite vaulting with ribs springing from wall shafts with moulded 13th-century capitals. A vaulted cellar with stone piers and brick arches lies to the west, beneath the 18th/19th-century range.

The gabled late 13th/early 14th-century range on the right (east) is constructed of squared coursed ironstone with a steeply pitched stone-slate roof. It is two storeys plus attic with a single window range. A doorway at first-floor level is reached by stone steps. To the left of these steps on the ground floor is the chamfered arch of an original window; a print of 1729 shows a similar window to the right, now hidden by the steps. Both were originally two-light windows with plate tracery. In the gable is the hood of a window with two pointed lights, partially obscured and cut into by a 17th-century mullioned window and further damaged by the first-floor doorway. Angle buttresses are present.

The interior of the ground floor contains the blocked arches of two windows on the south front, with labels of three further blocked arches visible in the side walls. The original 13th or 14th-century doorway with hollow chamfered arch leads to the vaulted passage. The first floor is open to roof timbers of a butt-purlin roof with principal rafters and common rafters, the beams in poor condition. This part of the house is said to have been the former chapel. The ground floor is currently used as a stable.

In 1343 Thomas, Earl of Warwick, granted the Canons of Clattercote the rectory of Ratley in Warwickshire. Thomas Boothly, Esq. paid tax on ten hearths in 1665.