The Priory Farmhouse

The Priory Farmhouse

This building was formerly part of the claustral buildings of the monastery at Deerhurst and is now a farmhouse. It was originally constructed in the 14th century, with significant alterations and additions in the late 15th or early 16th century, late 16th century, 17th century, 18th century, and various periods throughout the 19th century.

The structure is built of random rubble with some later brick patching and coursed, squared blue lias from the 19th century. The roof is covered with stone slates to the front and tiles to the rear. The building comprises a four-room, 2½-storey main block and a three-room, 1½-storey wing arranged in an off-centre 'T' formation, both one room deep, with a short wing projecting from the back of the lower wing.

All windows throughout feature leaded lights. The lower wing on the right displays three 3-light hollow-chamfered mullioned windows with 4-centred arches to each light, sunk spandrels, and hoodmoulds, with frames slightly proud of the wall to take render. Above these sits a gabled stone dormer containing a 2-light similar window, with a chimney on the ridge two bays from the right. The main range features a reticulated-tracery window lighting two floors, and a single-storey gabled porch with a 4-centred wide arch over a 3-panel door with vertical panels. Above the porch is a 2-light stone mullioned window with trefoil heads to the lights; one light was later cut down as a doorway but has since been restored. A gabled dormer with a 2-light wooden window sits above, with a cruciform brick chimney on the ridge behind the porch. The left return has a blocked ground-floor window and a 4-light window matching the main front above, with a 2-light window to the attic.

The rear elevation displays various windows with leaded lights, predominantly wooden except for those on the front. Windows include a 2-light window matching the front, a 3-light casement with iron opening light, a 6-panel door with the bottom two panels flush and containing a single light, and two carved pieces of Saxon stonework. Additional openings comprise 2-light and single-light casements, a 4-light ovolo-moulded casement, blocked 4-light mullions, a 2-light casement, a 4-light mullion and transom window, and a corbelled chimney rising from the eaves. Two corbels are visible, indicating the former position of the cloister roof. A gabled dormer with a 2-light casement and ridge chimney matches the front.

The interior contains heavy chamfered ceiling beams in the room on the left of the porch on both floors. The room on the right has a dado rail at ground level and a half-glazed door to the passage, dating from the early 19th century. A late 16th or early 17th-century moulded stone fireplace surround with a flat lintel is present. A dogleg stair features a moulded string, rail, turned balusters, and square newels. Beyond this room is a reset 12th-century column with 'Ionic' volutes to the capital. The first floor contains moulded intersecting ceiling beams in the end two rooms on the right, though these are plastered over in the bedroom.

The roof trusses feature tie-beams with cambered collars incorporating curved 'V' struts above, and added collars. In two trusses, wall posts survive below, rising from carved corbels; in one case, a curved brace to the tie-beam survives. The roof has two pairs of purlins and a square ridge.

Historically, the house originally formed the east side of the cloister range and was converted to a house after the Reformation. The first-floor room was probably originally left open to the roof, as evidenced by a large dormer from the rear eaves shown in drawings by Lysons until the 19th century. Bigland mentions remains of a spacious hall. The existing 1½-storey wing was built in the mid-19th century on the site of an earlier, taller range with a return from the east end to the south, as shown by Lysons. Part of the entrance front was roughcast at one stage, and the room to the right of the entrance was reformed in the early 19th century.

The Priory Farmhouse forms a group with the Church of St Mary, Odda's Chapel, and Abbot's Court.