Priestley'S House

Priestley’s House is a house dating from the 16th century, with a refronting in 1758. It is constructed of limestone ashlar, with coursed rubble on the sides, an ashlar gable stack on the right-hand side, and a slate and pantile roof. The building has a double-depth plan and incorporates a long rear west wing. It has two storeys, an attic, and a semi-basement, with a three-window front. It is divided by a plinth, plat band, a thin cornice, and a parapet; the front gables have roll-moulded coping, and there is a parallel gabled range behind.

The entrance, positioned between the left-hand windows, features a raised surround with a pediment, swept steps and curtail, and a wrought-iron railing leading to a six-panel door. The front has paired mid-18th-century windows in raised surrounds, these being nine/six-pane sashes with thick glazing bars. Two large early 19th-century hipped four-light dormers with leaded casements are present, along with a smaller six-pane dormer between them. Three basement openings have ovolo mullions, three lights in centre and to the right and four to the left. A panel above the door is inscribed C/F*E/1758. The left-hand gable exhibits a window where a former doorway once stood. The rear gable has altered 20th-century mullion and transom ground- and first-floor windows, and a chamfered stone-mullioned attic window.

The south front features a central Tudor-arched doorway with chamfered reveals. The west range likely represents a former 17th-century malthouse. It has blocked two-light mullion windows to the semi-basement, later 18th-century two-light wood-framed windows and a segmental-arched lunette window in the south gable, and three small eaves gables to the attic drying floor.

The interior, which was not inspected during the listing process, is believed to include a 16th-century full-width semi-basement remodelled in the 17th century, a 4-centre ovolo moulded doorhead re-used with 17th-century chamfered jambs, and a 5-centred arched stone lintel to a fireplace converted into an oven. The ground and first floors have chamfered oak beam and floor boards, along with 17th-century fireplaces, including hob grates on the first floor. A later 16th-century moulded wall beam has been re-used as a doorway lintel in the malthouse. Rear dormers display the ends of extended collar beam trusses.

Historically, the house was originally connected to numbers 20 and the White Hart Hotel, with the semi-basement extending beneath all three. It was divided into two houses and refronted in the mid-18th century by the Child family of Heddington. Dr Priestley lived here from approximately 1772 to 1790; he discovered oxygen in 1774 while working as librarian for the Earl of Shelbourne at Bowood House.