St Mary'S Priory House The Priory

This is a largely complete medieval priory, significantly altered and extended in the 19th century. The site’s origins lie in a house founded around 1103 as a daughter house of Fecamp Abbey, with substantial building phases in the mid-13th century (approximately 1230-1250) and remodelling between the 17th and 19th centuries. The building is constructed primarily of uncoursed limestone rubble, with a gabled stone slate roof. A rear lateral stack is finished in brick.

The surviving medieval core consists of a hall and associated service areas, reconfigured into a two-unit plan with a central passage in the early 17th century. The building now presents as two blocks, incorporating the former hall on the right, with a four-window range. A pointed-arch lancet window from the mid-13th century is located on the right side. Later windows include mid-17th century sashes set within moulded stone architraves, a 19th-century three-light window, and an early 17th century four-light stone-mullioned window with a cavetto moulding. Some C13 windows retain their dressed stone surrounds, one of which is blocked.

The interior of the medieval hall on the right displays pointed, chamfered rere-arches of the original windows to the front and right. The roof is a common-rafter structure of slight scantling, featuring open notched-lap joints to braced collars. Fragments of a 13th-century timber screen, along with some timber framing, are visible to the left of the hall, and within the flanking service passage. The rear of the passage contains hollow-chamfered jambs of a 13th-century doorway with half-pyramid stops, alongside two doorways with chamfered stone jambs. Other interior features include 17th-century stop-chamfered beams and a moulded stone fireplace with a spit rack to the left.

To the right of the original priory structure is St. Mary’s Priory House, built in 1859. This is constructed of squared and coursed limestone with a gabled stone slate roof and stone end stacks. It follows a double-depth plan and is built in an Elizabethan style, being triple-gabled with a three-window range. A canted bay window with sashes is on the right side, and the windows have hood moulds over 2-light stone-mullioned openings with mid-19th century sashes. The main entrance is located at the rear. The interior of St. Mary's Priory House has not been inspected. The roof construction is comparable to the 13th-century roof at The Old Rectory, Standlake.