Tortington Priory Barn, To The North Of Priory Farm

Tortington Priory Barn stands to the north of Priory Farm near Arundel. It is a single-aisled, six-bay barn dating to the late 17th or early 18th century, but incorporates significant medieval fabric from the Augustinian Priory church that once occupied this site.

The barn is constructed of stone rubble and flint with weatherboarding above, and has a thatched hipped roof. It is aligned east-west. The south wall incorporates part of the ruined north wall of the priory church's nave, standing to about three-quarters of its original height. This medieval wall has been breached to form an opening for one of the barn's opposed double doors, now fitted with 19th-century brick dressings on one side and a modern glazed door. The south wall retains the remains of three mid-13th-century vaulting shafts with bell capitals. The two shafts either side of the door are each composed of three smaller shafts supporting a circular abacus, from which spring the stumps of vault ribs. Window traces are visible behind the right-hand shaft.

About half of the east gable end wall comprises part of the rubble-built west wall of the church's north transept, visible both externally and internally, and standing to roughly three-quarters of its original height. Both east and west gable ends are weatherboarded in their upper parts. The east end has a four-light window set in the weatherboarding. The west gable end contains a doorway with a modern half-glazed plank door. The north wall has modern double plank doors opposing the south-side doors, with stone dressings. All walls have ventilation slits with stone dressings.

The roof comprises five queen-post trusses with staggered purlins tenoned into the principals. The single aisle runs along the north side. Jowled arcade posts stand on stone pads and have mortices in their outer faces for aisle ties and arched braces to the tie beams. Arched braces on the south side spring from the stone wall, which supports the trusses and rafters. Internal framing for the wagon entrance on the south side was removed during conversion to modern doors. The north side roof slopes downward, possibly to a winnowing door, a common 17th-century arrangement. The floor is laid in 18th-century stone tile.

The Augustinian Priory of Tortington was founded around 1180, probably by Hadwissa Corbet. For most of its history the small priory suffered from decay, neglect and disorder. At the Dissolution in 1536, it came automatically within the scope of the relevant act. The church walls were not completely demolished, and in the late 17th or early 18th century, using stone from the demolished priory buildings, new construction was added to the north and west of the remaining upstanding church walls to create this barn. The external south and east elevations of the barn were originally the internal north nave wall and west wall of the north transept respectively. The barn now forms an entrance lobby to a courtyard around which a bungalow was constructed in the 1990s.