The Priory And Attached Steps, Walls And Gateway

The Priory is a large house dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries. It is constructed from coursed limestone rubble with ashlar quoins, featuring an old plain-tile roof and brick stacks. The house is arranged in an L-shape.

The prominent three-gabled front is characterised by stone-mullioned windows, all with concave chamfers and labels. A four-centre arched entrance is located to the left of the centre, flanked by three large three-light windows on the ground floor, likely dating to the 19th century. There are four windows on the first floor, incorporating two- and three-light designs, with further two-light windows positioned in the gables. A stone cartouche bearing the arms of the Boyle family sits above the entrance. A large stack with four clustered diagonal shafts is located to the right of the centre, and a second stack is situated in the left gable wall, seemingly inserted as the windows below are blocked up. The right gable also features a two-light gable window and a blocked three-light window below. The rear of the house displays two gables, one with large mullioned windows and the other behind the stack, containing the staircase. A four-light roof dormer incorporates a moulded bargeboard and a pendant of an apex finial. A three-bay rear wing of two storeys, constructed in square coursed rubble, returns to the left, with matching mullioned windows, thought to be an early 17th-century addition. A gabled extension has been added to the left of this wing.

Inside, there are two wide Tudor-arched fireplaces, positioned back to back, and a large kitchen fireplace with a keyblock in the rear wing. A wide flight of stone steps ascends against the rear gable wall, leading to a Jacobean gateway with a stone gable and three ball finials. The gate is set within a wall with steep coping, which extends further down the garden as a retaining wall and forms the rear wall of a stone outbuilding, accompanied by a low wall with similar coping.

It is believed the house was originally built for Dr. Westfall, who later became Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Bishop of Hereford. Historical records suggest that Oliver Cromwell and John Milton visited John Thurloe, then Secretary of State, during his time as a tenant.