The Priory

The Priory is a house dating from the late 16th century, which was remodeled and extended at the rear in the early 18th century. It features roughcast over original timber framing, an old tile roof, and brick stacks. The original layout is an L-plan with a hall and a cross wing adjoining an earlier structure. The building has two storeys and an attic, with a three-window range. There is a Doric pedimented porch, dating to around 1790, that leads to a 20th-century door. Late 18th-century tripartite sash windows flank a sash window above the porch. Early 18th-century roof dormers have late 19th-century two-light casements. The gabled roof has a gable end left stack that is obscured by a small two-storey projection with sashes on the left side wall. The rear features mid to late 19th-century two- and three-light casements.

At the rear left, there is a late 16th-century two-storey and attic structure with a two-window range, which has an early 18th-century bay added. This section is built of early 18th-century brick with a hipped old tile roof and a brick lateral stack, and it has mid to late 18th-century sashes on the left side and rear, along with an early 18th-century gabled roof dormer featuring a two-light leaded casement.

Inside, the cellars have a chamfered and stopped middle beam, early 18th-century turned balusters for a one-light between the front and middle cellar, and a late 16th-century three-light chamfered stone-mullioned window at the front. The interior includes 18th-century six-panelled doors throughout, a ribbed door to the rear cellar steps with an early 18th-century cupboard above, and chamfered and stopped beams. There is an early 18th-century cupboard in the front left room, an early 18th-century cornice, and a 19th-century panelled dado in the room behind.

The rear of the hall features two keyed segmental-arched entries with moulded imposts and early 18th-century quarter-turn stairs with turned balusters on a closed string. Exposed timber-framing can be seen, along with the timber-framed external wall of No. 22 (Priory Cottage) on the first-floor right. The late 16th-century roof over the hall has been partly removed for an early 18th-century wider pitched roof, and a late 16th-century queen-post truss with clasped purlins survives in the left cross wall. The early 18th-century common-rafter roof with butt purlins is located at the rear left. Notably, Dr. Joseph Butler, who was the Bishop of Durham from 1692 to 1752, was born here.